The daylong gathering convened exactly 10 weeks after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sounded the alarm on the Zika virus by issuing its first travel advisory.
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Individuals also have a role to play in fighting Zika, by ridding their yards of trash and other containers that collect standing water where mosquitoes breed, according to the CDC.
The White House has requested $1.9 billion from Congress in the fight against Zika in the USA and overseas.
A female Aedes aegypti mosquito in the process of obtaining a blood mealWIKIMEDIA, JAMES GATHANYThe mosquito species that transmits Zika virus, which has raced through South and Central America over the past couple of years, is coming to the USA this summer.
Brazilian scientists are testing the effectiveness of a plant-source medicine against the Zika virus, which is thought to be responsible for the large increase in the number of microcephaly cases in newborns, reports China’s Xinhua news agency.
The Declaration now includes Alachua, Brevard, Broward, Clay, Collier, Hillsborough, Lee, Miami-Dade, Orange, Osceola, Palm Beach, Polk, Santa Rosa, Seminole and St. Johns. These domesticated insects rarely fly more than 150 yards from their base, said Lyle Petersen, director of the CDC’s division of vector-borne diseases and incident manager for Zika response.
“I think we need to be responsive because mosquito surveillance in Wisconsin has been very limited”.
23, 2016, the CDC said it is investigating more than a dozen possible Zika infections that may have been spread through sex. “Unfortunately it got eradicated before the Aedes aegypti did”, Frieden joked. Faster diagnostics are needed, as are effective mosquito control strategies.
“Shifting money from crisis to crisis will have us chasing our tails”, said Dr. Ed McCabe, medical director of the March of Dimes. This summit is a start, he said, a forum for sharing what he called best practices, which attendees should take home and implement.
He suggested that states appoint leaders for their Zika response efforts, but did not single out any state as having a complete plan of response for the disease.
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There is concern that hundreds of thousands of people on the USA island territory of Puerto Rico could become infected with the Zika virus this year. Health officials expect a few pockets of activity but have said the U.S. impact will likely be limited because most people in the highest risk areas have air conditioning or are protected from mosquitoes by window screens.
