Miami Under CDC Travel Warning Due to Zika Virus
Joe Cortez August 02, 2016
Warning comes as 14 local cases confirmed by CDC staff.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are urging pregnant women to avoid Florida this summer, after 14 cases of Zika have been reported through local mosquito transmission. ABC News reports the health agency issued the travel warning shortly after concerns the viral infection arrived to America.
The warning is concentrated on a one-square mile area north of Miami, where the first local outbreaks were concentrated. Because the Zika-transmitting mosquitoes fly less than 150 miles in their lifetime, health officials are confident that the warning is limited to the Miami area.
As a result, the federal health agency is warning women who are pregnant or may become pregnant from avoiding the area for the next eight weeks. The Zika virus has been linked to microcephaly, a birth defect where children are born with a small head.
In a statement, the CDC defended their decision to issue the alert on Friday, July 30, instead of earlier in the week. The travel warning was delayed because infection reports were curtailing, despite the lack of control of mosquito populations in the Miami area.
“What we have learned over past 48 hours is mosquito control efforts don’t appear to be as effective as we have previously hoped,” CDC director Tom Frieden told ABC News. “We will continue to look at this data every single day, including additional testing. If that changes, we will adjust the warning.”
According to the latest data from the CDC, 307 travel-associated cases of the Zika virus were reported in Florida, representing 19 percent of total cases in the United States. In total, 1,658 Zika-infections have been reported to the CDC from across the country.
[Photo: Center for Disease Control]
