ABC News : declared in No Zika detected in Florida mosquitoes so far this year, officials say

Last year, officials in southern Florida had to combat outbreaks of locally transmitted Zika virus in four areas in or near Miami. Officials from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said Thursday that no Zika virus has been detected in any mosquitoes tested this year. With summer approaching, Florida health officials are taking steps to prevent another outbreak of the Zika virus. All outbreaks of locally transmitted Zika in Florida were declared over by last December, six months after the first outbreak was reported in July. Last year, after locally transmitted Zika was spread in Miami, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the initial mosquito-control measures were not effective.

Florida releases experimental mosquitoes to fight Zika

The result, they hope, will be a reduced or eliminated population of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and the viruses they spread, including Zika virus. As explained in a presentation by the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, when these infected male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes mate with female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the eggs she produces won't hatch, thus they can't reproduce. While the male mosquitoes don't bite, "increases of mosquito activity will be most noticeable immediately following the releases," the mosquito control office warned. The Florida Keys Mosquito District said it is awaiting FDA approval on a proposed change in location for the trial. According to Oxitec, field trials in Brazil, Panama and the Cayman Islands resulted in a 90% reduction of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes over six months.


No mosquitoes in Florida have tested positive for Zika virus, The Associated Press reported on Friday. People in subtropic areas are encouraged to wear bug spray to protect against mosquito bites and the Zika virus. Humans contract the Zika virus through bites by infected Aedes mosquitoes. Of those collected in 2017, none yielded a positive test result, the agency said in a statement. Nearly 90,000 individual mosquitoes, in more than 6,500 pools of the insects, were tested with the support of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer services.


collected by :Lucy William
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