‘ZIKA IS NOW HERE’
First apparent mosquito-bite cases seen in Florida
MIAMI — Mosquitoes have apparently begun spreading the Zika virus on the U.S. mainland for the first time, health officials said yesterday, a long-feared turn in the epidemic that is sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean.
Four recently infected people in the Miami area — one woman and three men — are believed to have contracted the virus locally through mosquito bites, Gov. Rick Scott said.
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.
“Zika is now here,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Still, U.S. health officials said they do not expect widespread outbreaks in this country like those seen in Brazil, in part because of better sanitation, better mosquito control and wider use of window screens and air conditioners.
Although most people who get Zika don’t even know they are sick, infection during pregnancy can cause severe brain-related birth defects, including disastrously small heads.
More than 1,650 people in the mainland U.S. have been infected with Zika in recent months, nearly all while traveling abroad. The four people in Florida are believed to be the first to contract the virus from mosquitoes within the 50 states.
Health officials said the U.S. might see small clusters of infections. But “we don’t expect widespread transmission in the continental United States,” the CDC’s Frieden said.
The four Florida infections are thought to have occurred in a small area just north of downtown Miami, the governor said. People in Florida’s MiamiDade and Broward counties are being tested to learn whether there are more cases, the governor said.
Zika’s symptoms can include low-grade fever, rash, joint pain, headaches and inflamed eyes and typically last seven to 10 days. None of the four people infected in Florida are showing symptoms anymore, officials said.
Frieden said the evidence suggests that the mosquitoborne transmission occurred several weeks ago over several city blocks.
Zika primarily spreads through bites from a specific species of mosquito that is found in urban parts of the South and peaks in number in August and September. There have been more than 4,700 cases of mosquito-borne Zika in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories.