There is no vaccine or treatment for disease, which is spread only through mosquito bites. And since the virus is new to the USA, most people have no immunity to it.
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For example, many people in the USA have air conditioning in the summer, so aren’t as likely to leave windows open at the times of day when mosquitoes are especially active.
“There are two Asian mosquitoes that have become established in Canada, if we do get the virus up here and the climate changes enough to make the virus propagate quickly, then I think we could be in trouble”. And many counties and other municipalities spray to kill mosquitoes, and are vigilant in trying to eliminate pools of standing water where the insects can breed.
The previously little-known virus that re-emerged in Brazil in 2015 has now shown itself to be a possible threat to the continental United States.
A team was dispatched to fumigate the area in hopes of wiping out mosquitoes that could bite him and pass the virus on to others.
If you’re still in the process of making spring break plans and are headed to one of the several countries (including Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and most of Central and South America) that are now experiencing outbreaks of Zika virus, there’s a new precaution you may want to consider. The first human case was identified in Nigeria in 1954, and outbreaks were later reported in other parts of Africa, south-east Asia, the Pacific Islands and now Latin America.
Zika has arrived in the United States, but only from travelers returning from these infected areas. Brazil’s health minister Marcelo Castro says the country is sending some 220,000 troops to battle the mosquito blamed for spreading a virus suspected of causing birth defects, but he also says the war is already being lost. A biologist named Brian Foy was studying in Senegal collecting mosquitos for a research projects, according to the Times, and started displaying symptoms of mosquito-borne illness (like headache, fever, and a rash) when he returned home to Colorado. Brazilian health officials last October noticed a spike in cases of microcephaly in tandem with the Zika outbreak. But there’s been mounting evidence linking Zika infection in pregnant women to a birth defect in which a newborn’s head is unusually small and the brain may not develop properly.
Meanwhile, officials in the Argentine province of Corrientes have declared an epidemiological alert due to an outbreak of dengue in the area.
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On Tuesday, officials in Rio also ramped up their fight against the Aedes aegypti, dispatching a team of fumigators to the Sambadrome, where the city’s Carnival parades will take place next month, and the region’s governor was distributing mosquito-fighting vehicles for poor suburbs of the city.
