Zika transmission might originate in Palm Beach County

A 24-year-old Lake Worth woman has been confirmed as the second Palm Beach County resident to contract Zika virus through a local mosquito.

The woman was hospitalized from Friday until Sunday with classic Zika symptoms that included fever, rash, eye redness and joint pain, but a final diagnosis that she was infected by the mosquito-borne virus didn’t come until she was phoned Tuesday by county health officials.

While hundreds of U.S. residents have been infected with Zika while

traveling outside the country, only 43 have contracted the virus after being bitten by a domestic mosquito. All but one of those cases are in South Florida, with the majority in Miami-Dade County.

The Lake Worth resident said she hasn’t traveled outside of Palm Beach County in many months. The woman asked that she not be identified, but said it was important that the public and local physicians know that getting locally

transmitted Zika is a reality.

“I don’t want to be labeled, walking down the street and have people say, ‘Oh, there’s Zika,’ ” the woman said. “But I want people to know that this should be on their radar.”

Gov. Rick Scott announced the local case during a Zika roundtable Wednesday in Hillsborough County. That was followed by word from the Florida Department of Health that the county’s two cases of homegrown Zika are not related.

The first case was made public Aug. 8, but no further information was released about the person except that he or she likely was infected while in Wynwood, a trendy arts district north of downtown Miami that is ground zero for locally acquired Zika in the U.S.

The lack of a connection bet ween the t wo patients means there is no indication of a local outbreak in Palm Beach County, health officials said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines a local outbreak as two or more people infected by Zika who do not share a household, did not contract the virus through travel or sexual transmission, and who acquired the disease within 1-square mile over a period of two weeks or more.

Those conditions were met when the state revealed two areas — Wynwood and the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach — in Miami-Dade County with multiple cases of Zika transmitted through local mosquitoes.

Scott held a conference call Wednesday with Palm Beach County officials to assure them that steps are underway to gauge whether residents are at risk.

“We’ll be going door-to-door to do outreach in the Palm Beach area. We’ll be doing strategic testing to identify if any other people may have contracted the Zika virus,” Scott said.

The Lake Worth woman said she began experiencing abdominal pains Aug. 10, just after noticing two mos- quito bites on her right forearm. Within days her temperature shot up to 103.5 degrees, and the county Health Department was notified. The woman underwent tests at a local hospital but said her doctors remained highly skeptical that she had Zika.

“I felt like they were thinking, ‘No, this can’t be,’ ” she said. “Physicians need to know this is a possibility.”

The woman, who works as an office manager and is the mother of a young child, said she’s been in constant contact with the county Health Department since she was diagnosed. She’s been advised to stay indoors as much as possible and to wear long sleeves and repellent when venturing outside.

As of late Wednesday, county mosquito control officials had not visited her home, the woman said. At least one of her neighbors provided a sample to health officials to test for Zika, she said. Her child is also undergoing tests.

Experts say that only 20 percent of patients with Zika show symptoms similar to the woman in Lake Worth. The real danger is for pregnant women because the virus can result in microcephaly, a birth defect that produces abnormally small heads and brains in newborns.

While she is finally beginning to feel better, the Lake Worth patient said she’s worried about the future.

“I’m 24 years old,” she said. “What if I get pregnant in two years? Who’s to say this virus is going to be out of my system? Who’s to say this is not going to affect my future child? There’s not much research and not a lot of answers, and that’s scary.”