Four cases of Zika infection in Florida are very likely to have been caused by mosquitoes there, the state’s Department of Health has said – the first documented instances of local transmission in the continental United States. The virus causes fever, rash and pain, and it also causes severe birth defects when pregnant women contract the virus through mosquito bites or from a partner.
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In a notice sent to blood centers and posted on the agency’s website Wednesday evening, the FDA said it is requesting all blood centers in Miami-Dade or Broward counties to “cease collecting blood immediately” until those facilities can test individual units of blood donated in those two counties with a special investigational donor screening test for Zika virus or until the establishments implement the use of an approved or investigational pathogen-inactivation technology.
She explained the Zika virus, “is spread primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti mosquito, and possibly the Aedes albopictus mosquito, both of which are included on the situation report, indicating their prevalence within areas where mosquito traps are set”. 80% of people who become infected by Zika virus have no symptoms.
“Pregnant women are advised to consider postponing nonessential travel [to Florida] until after pregnancy”, he said.
A small area north of downtown Miami that is about a square mile in size is believed to be the only place where the Zika virus is being transmitted from mosquitoes to people.
A total of 53 Brits have already been treated for being Zika positive.
“Zika is now here”, Dr Thomas Frieden, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in a press statement on Friday.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says there are 1,200 more cases of Zika confirmed in the U.S. and its territories this week than there were last week.
Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs, whose jurisdiction includes Walt Disney World and other Orlando-area theme parks, said tourists shouldn’t think twice about coming to the Sunshine State. “We will continue to support Florida’s efforts to investigate and respond to Zika and will reassess the situation and our recommendations on a daily basis”.
Public Health England updated its travel advice after the first cases of Zika transmitted by mosquitoes on the U.S. mainland appeared in the state.
“This is not just a Florida issue”.
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A CDC spokesperson said the question of whether to issue a travel recommendation is “literally a day-by-day decision”.
