The elderly relative who died after contracting Zika overseas had amounts of the virus in his blood more than 100,000 times higher than other samples of infected people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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A third case of the Zika virus in Denton County has been detected in a Lewisville resident who recently traveled to Nicaragua, county health officials said Tuesday.
The department said the case was reported in Miami-Dade County and that it is working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on an epidemiological study.
As of last week, The Atlantic reports, there are 1,305 people with Zika in the US, but none of them caught the virus locally. While there is one documented case of Zika virus transmission from a woman to a man, more is still being learned.
CDC officials reported that health officials are investigating how the second person became infected, interviewing and conducting blood tests of family members and healthcare workers who may have had contact with the man, who died in June.
“In an abundance of caution, and an attempt to combat Aedes mosquitos, crews from Vector Disease Control International, a private company hired by the City of Lewisville, will conduct mosquito spraying/fogging in the areas closely surrounding the infected resident’s house”. “Zika kits are intended for pregnant women”, it said. The diagnosis brings the state’s total confirmed cases to eight. To check if the country you may be visiting is experiencing Zika virus, check the CDC’s website at http://www.cdc.gov/zika/geo/active-countries.html.
There have been 326 confirmed cases of Zika in Florida with six cases in Duval County.
Florida health officials said Zika prevention kits and repellent will be available for pick up in Miami-Dade and distributed in the area under investigation, which was not disclosed. The CDC has predicted that a traveler would eventually be bitten by local mosquitoes and infect them with the virus. Thousands of babies have been born in Brazil with abnormally small heads and brains, a condition called microcephaly.
The investigators intend as well to trap and test local mosquitoes to make certain they are not carrying the virus.
The health officer and director of the Snohomish Health District, Dr. Gary Goldbaum said that any disease can be in our community within a matter of hours in the world we live in today.
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Drain standing water around their homes to reduce mosquito breeding grounds.
