U.S. health officials today said that there is a “high likelihood” that four cases of Zika virus have been locally transmitted, the first evidence that mosquitoes carrying the virus are present in the country.
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“This morning we learned that four people in our state likely have the Zika virus as a result of a mosquito bite”, Florida governor Rick Scott said on Friday.
Florida health officials are going door-to-door and are collecting urine samples in that area in order to try to determine how many are affected. This will bring the department a step closer to understanding the gravity of the situation.
Of the four new cases, Scott said, two were in Miami-Dade County and two in Broward County.
The CDC is assisting state and local health officials with the investigation in Florida.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that hundreds of children could be born with birth defects in the coming year. Though sexual transmission has not been ruled out.
It can take a couple of weeks before an infected person shows symptoms, and by then the mosquitoes that transmitted the virus are dead, she said.
“Floridians can do their part by draining standing water surrounding their homes, as it can serve as breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that are capable of transmitting the virus”, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Adam H. Putnam said Friday. Federal health officials have said they don’t anticipate that it will be widespread, however. Among other things, Scott directed the state Department of Health to provide $620,000 to OneBlood, the primary blood bank in the area, so that the center can set up the appropriate screening procedures.
Zika primarily spreads through bites from a specific species of tropical mosquito that can also carry other diseases, including dengue fever and chikungunya.
Does not included suspected cases of local transmission.
Health officials think that the US should be able to avoid a major outbreak because of better sanitation, better mosquito control and more extensive use of window screens and air conditioners. Fifteen of those individuals were infected by sexual transmission, and there is one case of a laboratory-acquired infection.
The state’s surgeon general, however, said: “We recognize that the unknown can be scary, especially for pregnant women”.
Local transmission “is the news we’ve been dreading”, said Dr. Edward McCabe, chief medical officer and senior vice president of the March of Dimes.
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Pregnant women are considered to be at the greatest risk from the Zika virus because it can cause microcephaly and other birth defects.
