Florida reports local Zika case in Tampa area
Florida Gov. Rick Scott reports the first local case of Zika outside of South Florida — in the Tampa Bay area — along with four more in Miami.
MIAMI — Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday announced the first local case of Zika outside of South Florida — in the Tampa Bay region — along with four more in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood.
A total of 42 local Zika infections reportedly have been contracted in four Florida counties this year: with one each in Broward, Palm Beach and now Pinellas, and the remainder in Miami-Dade — where health officials have identified two zones where mosquitoes are transmitting the disease: Wynwood and Miami Beach.
The single case in Pinellas, in the city of Clearwater, does not mean that mosquitoes are spreading Zika to other people in that area. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines a local outbreak as two or more people infected with Zika who do not share a household, with travel and sexual transmission ruled out, and who acquired the disease within 1 mile over a period of two weeks or more.
Free tests offered
In announcing the news on Tuesday, Scott also declared a small victory in Wynwood that has not been endorsed by the CDC.
The governor said Florida’s health department has “cleared” about half of the 1-square-mile zone of active transmission in Wynwood because further testing for Zika virus has not produced evidence of further transmission.
However, the CDC has not amended its guidelines since the area was identified on July 29. The agency continues to advise pregnant women to avoid the entire 1-square-mile area, in addition to a 1.5-squaremile section of Miami Beach.
Pregnant women who were in the Wynwood area after June 15 or in the Miami Beach zone after July 14 are advised to talk with their doctors and consider being tested for Zika, according to the CDC.
County health departments are offering free Zika tests to pregnant women anywhere in the state, and Scott directed Miami-Dade residents who want mosquito control services to contact the county at 311.
The four new cases from Wynwood reported on Tuesday are about a month old, health officials said.
“These four individuals experienced Zika symptoms in mid-July. However, they required antibody testing to rule out other mosquito-borne illness such as dengue and chikungunya,” said Mara Gambineri, a health department spokeswoman.
State health officials have not “cleared” any portion of the area in Miami Beach identified on Friday as the county’s second front against local spread of Zika.
“We are still asking the federal government to be a partner in this,” said Scott, who asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to send an additional 5,000 Zika antibody tests and 10,000 prevention kits to Florida — an order that federal officials have promised to fill by Tuesday.
Playing politics?
Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, a Democrat with gubernatorial aspirations, had accused the Republican governor earlier that day of playing politics with Zika and keeping the city in the dark about the number of local infections. He confronted the governor.
“It’s important that myself, the city manager, our counterparts at the county are getting timely, accurate information as fast as possible,” Levine said. “As you know, we have our constituents. We have our businesses. … We’ve just got to have that information.”
Scott responded to Levine that the state has a responsibility to ensure that the information it issues on Zika is “timely and accurate.”
“Everybody’s had the opportunity to participate,” Scott said.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, a Republican who has participated in the governor’s community meetings prior to the first local Zika case, also took a shot at Scott during Monday’s meeting.
“Everything’s not rosy, governor,” Gimenez said to Scott, who was seated near him. “There are times when communication has broken down a little bit and we want to make sure that doesn’t happen. We want to make sure we are all on the same page, and we are all communicating the same thing. We are all Floridians.”