The infection causes only mild illness in most people but leads to microcephaly in infants – a birth defect where a baby’s head and brain are smaller than normal.
Advertisement
More than 1,650 people in the mainland U.S. have been infected with Zika in recent months, almost all while traveling overseas.
“Puerto Rico is in the midst of a Zika epidemic”.
This route is the most damaging to the fetus, and is most likely to leave the child with birth defects, including microcephaly.
No mosquitoes in Florida have actually been found to be carrying Zika, despite the testing of 19,000 by the state lab. But other methods of Zika transmission, such as travel to a stricken country or sex with an infected person, have been ruled out in the four South Florida cases. The virus is typically transmitted through the bite of Aedes mosquitoes. The reason: better insect control as well as window screens and air conditioning that should help curtail any outbreaks. Officials for the CDC and representatives for Florida health have concluded that victims in Florida have been infected by local mosquitoes in Miami.
“Our county has a highly effective mosquito prevention and monitoring program in place throughout the destination, and confirm that no cases of Zika have been contracted through mosquitos in our area”, Visit Orlando, the area’s tourism association, said in a statement.
Pregnant women are now being told to delay travelling to Florida because of the virus as summer tourists prepare to travel to the popular holiday destination during the summer. “They’re spraying by both truck and backpack, both for adult mosquitoes and larval mosquitoes”.
There are also reported cases of sexual transmission in France and Canada. The four people appear to have been infected in early July; since then, mosquito control efforts have been stepped up in the area, and additional cases have not been identified. Congress bears much of the blame for Zika’s devastation because we turned down every chance we had to stop it from coming here.
The state has warned residents to protect themselves against mosquito bites, and distributed Zika prevention kits for pregnant women at local doctors’ offices. “It can be something as small as a bottle cap and have enough water for mosquito larvae to develop”, Weaver says.
Frieden concurred. “The Aedes aegypti mosquito does not travel more than 150 meters in its lifetime, and often quite a bit less than that”, he said.
Governor Rick Scott said on Friday that the state believed active transmission of the virus was occurring within an area of Miami about the size of square mile [2.6sq km].
The FDA urged nearby counties to take similar precautions to safeguard blood supplies.
Zika primarily spreads through bites from a species of mosquito that is found in urban parts of the South and peaks in number in August and September. Bergen And Passaic counties have the most cases with 14 apiece. The condition can also be associated with severe developmental issues and in rare cases, even death. “Pregnant women should consider postponing nonessential travel to affected areas until after the pregnancy”. Pregnant women can relax in this zone.
Scott said the state health department was working with the CDC as it continues its Zika investigation.
Congress left on a seven-week vacation without giving the Obama administration any of the $1.9 billion it sought for mosquito control, vaccine development and other steps to battle Zika.
Advertisement
The parks intensified their fight against nuisance mosquitoes over a decade ago when the West Nile virus first surfaced in the US, said industry consultant Dennis Speigel. “And so, you know, I think you want to make sure that you avoid that”.
1 Comment on this Post
sp
Maybe, spraying for mosquitoes should start earlier in the Florida Keys and be conducted more often to prevent so many, many mosquitoes from getting the virus. Oh, I forgot. That costs money. They need that money for that huge new building with the gym in it.