More than 1,650 Zika infections have been reported in the USA, but the four patients in Florida would be the first not linked to travel outside the US mainland.
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Infection during pregnancy is considered the greatest risk from the current Zika outbreak, which has spread rapidly through the Americas since it was first detected in Brazil previous year.
“These [U.S.] cases are not unexpected”.
Local health officials say the short answer is-yes.
For months, CDC experts have been monitoring cases spreading throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and preparing for the possibility of local transmission in the states.
“Puerto Rico is in the midst of a Zika epidemic. Our top priority is to protect pregnant women from the potentially devastating harm caused by Zika”.
FLORIDA’S governor says the state likely has the first cases of Zika transmitted by mosquitoes on the USA mainland.
Zika primarily spreads through bites from a specific species of mosquito that is found in urban parts of the South and peaks in number in August and September.
Epidemiologists say they can’t be certain that the four South Florida cases are the only locally acquired cases in the United States. These include using an insect repellent with DEET, wearing long trousers and long-sleeve shirts, staying indoors with air conditioning, and eliminating all standing water. Health officials have confirmed four people in Miami-Dade and Broward county were infected through local transmission.
We continue to learn about Zika virus, and we are working hard to find out more about these cases.
In a statement Friday, the main organization collecting blood in Florida said that, effective immediately, all blood collections in its service area in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and SC will be tested for the virus using an experimental donor-screening test. It said operations remain business as usual. Dr. Frieden said he would not be surprised to see additional cases and possibly clusters. Rosebo has seen Miami-Dade mosquito control personnel spraying in the area the last few days.
No Zika-infected mosquitoes have been found in the area.
Anyone bitten by mosquitoes in Florida could help public health experts trying to track the disease through the Mosquito Byte! smartphone app, a project led by North Carolina State University entomologist Michael Reiskind. However, the Health Department believes they are the cause.
Aedes mosquitoes feed primarily on human blood, and tend to breed in small pools of water found in local neighborhoods.
Frieden concurred. “The Aedes aegypti mosquito does not travel more than 150 meters in its lifetime, and often quite a bit less than that”, he said.
Meanwhile, Florida has announced more aggressive mosquito-control efforts and politicians are keen to assure tourists the state is safe to visit. They can resume collections once the blood centers put in place testing for each unit of blood collected.
The FDA urged nearby counties to take similar precautions to safeguard blood supplies.
In addition to mosquitoes, the Zika virus can be transmitted through sex. These infections are thought to have occurred because the patients’ partners had traveled to countries where Zika is circulating, the CDC said.
The Zika virus also has been linked to a rare paralyzing condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome.
While the CDC has advised pregnant women not to travel to countries with local transmission, it is not recommending such restrictions in Florida at this time.
There has been no evidence that anyone contracted Zika virus through a mosquito bite in Ohio.
President Barack Obama has requested $1.9 billion from Congress to combat the virus, but lawmakers have not reached an agreement on how much funding to provide.
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“As we have anticipated, Zika is now here”, said Tom Frieden, chief of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), speaking to reporters in a conference call.
