Miami Beach official: No confirmation of Zika spreading

News about possible locally-transmitted Zika cases in Miami Beach had been circulating since Thursday, when WLRN’s news partner the Miami Herald published a story quoting an email from City Manager Jimmy Morales indicating at least two local cases of Zika.

Zika is now spreading in two places in Florida – in Miami Beach as well as an area north of Miami, Governor Rick Scott confirmed Friday.

Five people – including visitors from New York, Texas and Taiwan – have contracted the virus in South Beach, Florida officials said.

Three vacuum trucks purchased to help Miami Beach fight rising sea levels have been used since the beginning of the year to drain water in low-lying areas where mosquitoes could breed, said Roy Coley, the city’s infrastructure director. “The vast majority of local transmissions hit a dead end after one or two people in one household”. Its recommendation, on Friday, warned against visiting the sections between Eighth Street and 28th Street in Miami Beach and advised pregnant women to postpone all non-essential travel to all of Miami-Dade County. Those who were in the area since July 14th are asked to get tested. It gave the same direction for these women’s sexual partners. The area has a constant stream of visitors, many of them worldwide, who could carry the virus elsewhere should they get infected.

The other one is in the Wynwood neighborhood in Miami. And the city’s South Beach is a beach, after all, notorious for skimpy bikinis and a general lack of clothing at all hours. He said the federal agency also has sent Florida $35 million to purchase any Zika prevention and preparedness supplies the state may need.

As the Collier Mosquito Control District continues to spray the areas around the county, we learned there are areas where the district isn’t allowed to spray. Ventura County health officials believe that the type of mosquito that transmits Zika is not present in the county.

The new warnings represent a challenge to Florida’s multibillion dollar tourism industry and raise concerns over Zika’s spread in the continental US. Thus far, no indigenous cases have been reported here.

US officials said they don’t expect to see a Zika epidemic in the United States similar to those in Latin America.

“The future of mankind against mosquito-borne disease is bright”. “This is truly the cockroach of mosquitoes”. “That’s out of a state that takes 15 hours to drive from Key West to Pensacola, so let’s put things in perspective”, said Scott. “I want everybody in this state to stay safe”.

Microcephaly is a condition where a baby is born with a much smaller head than average, occurs during pregnancy and has been linked to the Zika virus. All of the OH cases were brought back to the state by infected travelers returning from Zika-plagued countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and the Dominican Republic.