The Department of Health is now wrapping up plans on how to invest these dollars, but a representative said it would generally be used to continue the state’s aggressive public awareness campaign, expand laboratory services, and coordinate prevention and response efforts with local officials and community partners. The MSDH strongly advises pregnant women not to travel to countries where Zika is actively being transmitted. Part two looks at the chain reaction set off by the virus in Latin America.
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Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that may causes serious birth defects if contracted during pregnancy. Eighty percent of those infected do not have any symptoms. Use condoms to help prevent spreading the virus through sexual contact, which the CDC says is a very important precaution for pregnant women and women of childbearing age because Zika has been linked to potentially severe birth defects.
Those carrying the Zika virus do not always experience symptoms, but they could include fever, rash, joint or muscle pain, pink eye or headache, and last up to one week.
The cases were in residents from Chickasaw, Hinds and Rankin counties who recently traveled to St. Thomas, Nicaragua and Guatemala. Zika virus is spread to people primarily through the bite of a mosquito. The MSDH is now conducting surveillance for Aedes mosquito populations in every county in the state.
A very small number of Asian tiger mosquitoes have been found in Richardson County so far. The first outbreaks occurred in 2007 and 2013 in the Pacific Islands.
While lawmakers from Florida and other southern states with tropical weather are especially concerned, Fauci said Americans throughout the country are vulnerable.
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Called “Spill the Water”, health officials are getting information to grade school students on how water around their home area can be used to spread the virus.
