Health authorities in the state of Florida say they have found the first mosquitoes known to carry the virus on the U.S. mainland in the tourist hot spot of Miami Beach, where doctors had previously reported cases of locally transmitted Zika, which also spreads through sexual contact.
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The committee said that future research should focus on sexual transmission of Zika, and particularly on how long someone is at risk spreading it sexually after getting infected.
The vast majority of Zika infections have been in Latin America and the Caribbean, with Brazil the epicenter.
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The danger of mosquito-borne Zika infection for pregnant American women became more imminent last month, with two neighborhoods in the Miami area reporting cases of locally acquired infection.
“The impact on populations will also depend heavily on the country’s ability to diagnose and respond to a possible outbreak”, it said.
The study explains that these people live in areas with climatic conditions favorable for mosquitoes that carry the virus. Eighty-six others tested negative of the virus, the report said.
One of the mosquitoes that tested positive for Zika was found in the Miami Beach Botanical Garden.
Although Zika was first identified in 1947, the virus wasn’t considered a major health threat until a major outbreak in Brazil previous year revealed that Zika can lead to severe birth defects when pregnant women are infected.
“This extraordinary event is rapidly becoming, unfortunately, an ordinary event”, Heymann said, explaining that health officials around the world should prepare for the imminent arrival of the disease spread mostly by mosquitoes, but also through sex.
‘It’s pretty obvious that there is a clear relationship, ‘ lead author Dr Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases at the Pan American Health Organization, said.
Infection caused by the Zika virus results in mild or no symptoms in patients in many cases.
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On Thursday, Malaysia announced its first imported case of Zika in a 58-year-old woman who had visited Singapore, where the official number of Zika infections had reached 189 on Friday.
