Zika investigations eating up funds, Florida officials say

This week health officials in Florida identified what appears to be the first locally transmitted Zika virus infection, and NBC News reports below that a second possible South Florida case of locally spread Zika has been diagnosed.

Brazilian researchers revealed they have found signs of the zika virus in a mosquito known as Culex quinquefasciatus.

Primarily spread by tropical mosquitoes, Zika causes only a mild illness in most people. And given A. aegypti’s presence in Florida, officials are concerned that Zika is spreading from within the state, and not necessarily spreading from people who contracted the disease while overseas.

The Florida Health Department has begun issuing Zika prevention kits for pregnant women and is working with mosquito control to reduce the population of mosquitoes in the area where the two people were infected.

The Health Department reported the first infant delivered with Zika-related microcephaly in New York City Thursday.

There have been no confirmed cases of mosquito-borne transmission of Zika in the United States.

So far, the city has reported 346 cases of Zika infections, all related to travel.

He said that was basically the flying radius of the mosquitoes that spread Zika.

The CDC advises pregnant women not to travel to an area where Zika transmission is ongoing, and to use insect repellent and wear long trousers and long-sleeved shirts if they are in those areas.

Federal, state and local health officials nationwide have been preparing for locally acquired cases of the virus for months.

They said the findings “confirm the species as a potential vector of the virus”.

There is no vaccine for Zika.

Crews in Utah, meanwhile, are setting traps in old tires and junkyards and dumping mosquito-eating fish into ponds and abandoned pools after a man became infected while caring for his dying father, who had been infected while traveling. Babies with microcephaly often have smaller brains that might not develop properly.

WJBF’s Jennie Montgomery spoke with Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, and Dr. Chris Rustin, the GDPH’s Director of Environmental Health…. about the steps most of us need to take to prevent Zika. Three additional cases were then reported last week on July 15, followed by the two latest cases reported today, according to the health department. The child also tested positive for Zika virus, definitively linking this particularly case of microcephaly to the virus.