|
 Steve Huard, acting spokesman for Florida Department of Health in
Pinellas County, said the case involves a woman without a
significant travel history, indicating the virus was contracted
locally.
He did not know the timeline on the case, only that it had been
confirmed within the past day. He did not have any more details on
the patient's illness.
"At this point, it's a single case. It’s a one-off,” Huard said. “We
don’t know where it originated, and we are doing appropriate testing
and medical surveillance.”
Florida Governor Rick Scott said the state department of health has
begun door-to-door outreach in Pinellas County, testing individuals
to find other cases.
Pinellas County is home to St. Petersburg, Clearwater and a number
of Gulf Coast beaches that are popular tourist destinations.
Scott said the health department and Pinellas County Mosquito
Control have begun "aggressive spraying and mosquito abatement
efforts," and he said any pregnant woman who wants a free Zika test
or a Zika prevention kit should contact the health department.
The Zika virus was first detected in Brazil last year and has since
spread across the Americas. The virus poses a risk to pregnant women
because it can cause severe birth defects. It has been linked to
more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly in Brazil.
Federal health officials on Friday warned pregnant women not to
travel to Miami Beach after Florida confirmed that the
mosquito-borne Zika virus was active in the popular tourist
destination, becoming the second area in Miami to be affected after
Wynwood.
Mara Gambineri, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Health
said the department believes ongoing local transmission is only
occurring in the small areas identified in Miami-Dade County.
On Tuesday, Florida announced four new cases of Zika in the Wynwood
neighborhood, where officials have been aggressively spraying for
the mosquitoes that carry the virus for weeks. Florida has so far
reported 42 cases of locally transmitted Zika.
Gambineri said in an email the cases of individuals in Wynwood
experienced Zika symptoms in mid-July, prior to the start of an
aerial spraying campaign. Gambineri said the cases were only
announced today because the individuals required antibody testing to
rule out other mosquito-borne illness, such as dengue and
Chikungunya.
CLOSELY MONITORING NEW CASES
In a conference call on Friday, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the CDC does
expect to see occasional cases of local transmission, which is what
experts have seen with outbreaks of dengue and Chikungunya.
In those outbreaks, for every 9 or so one-off cases, there was one
new cluster of local mosquito-borne transmission, but he said, "The
vast majority of local transmissions hit a dead end after one or two
people in one household."
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Frieden said the CDC is closely monitoring new cases in the Wynwood
neighborhood to see whether their mosquito control efforts - which
have included aerial spraying of pesticides to kill adult mosquitoes
and mosquito larvae - are working.
Mosquito control experts in Pinellas County are not planning the
type of aerial spraying campaign underway in Miami-Dade County.
Local officials said they believe ground-level efforts will be most
effective against the type of mosquito that transmits Zika, which
can breed in small containers.
Rob Krueger, an entomology and education support specialist with
Pinellas County Mosquito Control, compared aerial spraying to
dropping golf balls on a football field. While chemical droplets may
get close to the mosquito habitat, there is no way to know that
every possible breeding spot has been reached through a diffuse,
overhead approach.
“Our method is strictly boots-on-the-ground, and going door to door
to make sure that we can find every Aedes aegypti mosquito that is
out there and eradicate it,” Krueger said.
He said mosquito control districts in Florida have flexibility to
use the approach and chemical agents best suited for the local
population and financial resources. Pinellas, which is Florida’s
most densely developed county, does not typically use aerial spray
products against this type of mosquito.
Krueger said there is no "magic bullet" for eradicating Aedes
aegypti. What it is going to take is "going door to door, fixing it
as we go.”
Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious diseases expert at the University of
Pittsburgh Medical Center, said Florida needs to make it clear that
"anywhere these mosquitoes are present is at risk.”
Adalja said while knowing the exact area of transmission is
important for issuing travel warnings to pregnant women, he said the
entire state needs to be vigilant.
Adalja expects multiple counties in Florida will be affected, as
well as areas in Texas and Louisiana, though these outbreaks will be
limited to discreet areas.
(Additional reporting by Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Paul
Simao and Bernard Orr)
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