It can also cause serious birth defects when a woman is infected during pregnancy.
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According to HealthGrove, areas in the South and Southeast of the United States were found to be at the most risk, ranking 1-10.
The Johnson County health department has enlisted zoologist Christopher Rogers to perform mosquito surveillance for the Aedesmosquito, the type known to carry Zika, Marsh said.
If you have booked a holiday to a destination where there is an outbreak of Zika virus and you don’t want to travel, your right to change or get a refund for your trip will depend on how you booked it and what your circumstances are. “I would really like to see local governments be able to do increased testing and monitoring, so we can continue to be diligent when it comes to Zika in our communities”, U.S. Representative Pete Aguilar said.
As of June 15 there were 756 confirmed cases of the Zika virus in the US, nearly all of them categorized as “travel associated” – meaning the victims were infected outside the country, the CDC said.
The Texas Task Force on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response team was activated and it is now working with the Department of State Health Services to finalize the Zika Virus Preparedness and Response Plan.
The current Zika outbreak was first detected in Brazil past year, and public health officials estimate it could infect up to 4 million people in the Americas.
The Zika virus poses the most unsafe threat to expectant moms and their unborn babies, as it’s been linked to life-threatening birth defects, including microcephaly, or unusually small heads and undeveloped brains. The discovery suggests a potential target for new drugs to fight Zika and other flaviviruses such as dengue and West Nile.
“The focus is clear, put women at the center of the response and protect them and their children from Zika virus infection”.
“We are just trying to work out if it applies to the whole of pregnancy but at this stage we don’t differentiate and provide the same advice for women at any stage of pregnancy”, she said. Symptoms include mild fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis.
More than one in ten people – 15 per cent – also believe mosquitos only bite at night and 45 per cent of people do not realise that mosquitoes are attracted by certain body odours.
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But, he said, mosquito control measures are “proving grossly inadequate and a new vaccine is at least 36 months away”.
