Tag Archives: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Florida has identified 10 more Zika cases; calls in feds for help

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen at the Laboratory of Entomology and Ecology of the Dengue Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The state of Florida has identified 10 more cases of Zika virus caused by local mosquitoes and has asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to send in experts to help with the investigation of the outbreak.

The state now has a total of 14 cases of Zika caused by locally transmitted mosquitoes, according to a statement issued on Monday by Florida Governor Rick Scott.

The Florida Department of Health said it believes active transmission of Zika is restricted to one small area in Miami-Dade County, just north of downtown Miami.

The health department said six of the 10 new cases are asymptomatic and were identified through the door-to-door community survey and testing that it is conducting.

Scott said the state has called on the CDC to activate a CDC Emergency Response Team to assist the Florida Department of Health and other partners in their investigation, sample collection and mosquito control efforts.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Bill Trott)

Zika virus confirmed in Texas traveler, health officials say

Health officials in one Texas county say they’ve received word that a traveler who recently visited Latin America contracted the Zika virus, a puzzling mosquito-borne illness that has collected lots of attention because it may be linked to a substantial rise in birth defects in Brazil.

Harris County Public Health & Environmental Services made the announcement Monday, saying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the diagnosis.

Harris County encompasses Houston and is one of the country’s largest counties.

According to the CDC, the Zika virus is spread when an infected mosquito bites a person, usually triggering a mild illness that causes people to experience symptoms like fever, rashes and joint pain. Most people recover within a week, and there’s seldom any need for hospitalization.

However, the Brazilian Ministry of Health is currently investigating more than 3,000 cases of microcephaly, a disorder that causes children to be born with abnormally small heads. Brazil only saw 147 cases of microcephaly last year, but the numbers have surged since the Zika virus arrived in May and authorities are still working to see if there’s a direct link between the two.

The CDC has said there hasn’t been any indication Zika has been contracted in the United States, though there have been multiple cases of people getting infected while visiting a foreign country and returning home. Officials didn’t indicate when or where this traveler got infected.

The virus has caused outbreaks in at least 12 countries in North and South America, according to the CDC, as well as many others in Africa and Southeast Asia. In late December, the CDC issued a travel notice for Puerto Rico after the island identified its first locally-acquired Zika infection.

The CDC asks people traveling to Puerto Rico — and other countries where Zika is present — to take proactive steps to safeguard themselves from mosquito bites, like wearing insect repellant and wearing long sleeves and pants. But the organization says the virus will likely continue to reach new territories because the specific kind of mosquitos that spread it live across the globe.

That type of mosquito — the Aedes species — are present in Harris County, according to the county Public Health & Environmental Service’s website. The agency echoed the CDC’s calls for travelers to take preventative steps when they’re traveling to nations where Zika is found.

There’s currently no vaccine against the virus, the CDC says.

Different Strain of Swine Flu Could Lead to New Pandemic, Study Shows

A strain of flu that has been circulating in pigs for decades is now capable of sickening humans and could cause to a pandemic similar to the one swine flu caused in 2009, a new study found.

A team of researchers from China and Japan recently found that a type of swine flu virus called EAH1N1 is now capable of sickening humans on a global scale, and published their discovery in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers wrote that the virus has been found in pigs since 1979, but “long-term evolution” in the animals have changed the virus and it’s now capable of not just making humans sick, but efficiently spreading between them.

The researchers warned EAH1N1 is now able “to cause a human influenza pandemic.” Their research indicated that several countries have already reported human cases of the illness.

The study “suggests that immediate action is needed” to prevent humans from getting the EAH1N1 virus, researchers wrote in the article’s summary, because of how it can spread and the fact that none of the humans they tested had developed antibodies for one particular flu strain.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that the 2009 swine flu outbreak, caused by the different H1N1 virus, killed anywhere between 151,700 and 575,400 people.

The World Health Organization says pigs have been known to generate new flu viruses because they are capable of getting infected by several different animals and humans. The viruses blend together in pigs, creating new strains that can make humans sicker than the original viruses.

Hawaii Dealing with Rare Dengue Fever Outbreak

Health officials in Hawaii are currently investigating more than 100 cases of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne illness that experts say can lead to potentially lethal complications in rare cases.

The Hawaii Department of Health says on its website that there were 122 confirmed dengue cases as of Wednesday. The disease isn’t endemic (regularly found) in Hawaii, it says, but it can occasionally be brought in from someone who traveled to an endemic region and got infected.

However, the department indicates this is a cluster of people who contracted the disease locally.

It’s the first such outbreak since a 2011 cluster of cases in Oahu, the department says. According to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention records, only five people fell ill in that outbreak.

This cluster is on Hawaii Island, the big one. CNN reported that CDC officials were traveling to the island on Wednesday and bringing specially designed mosquito traps to help catch the bugs.

Of the 122 confirmed cases, the health department says 106 are residents of the island and 16 were visiting. Ninety three were adults and 29 were children. They began falling ill between Sept. 11 and Nov. 24. No deaths have been reported, but the disease has been known to kill.

The World Health Organization (WHO), an arm of the United Nations, says dengue causes a flu-like illness and is traditionally found in the tropics and subtropics. But it says the disease has rapidly spread to new areas in recent years and roughly half the world’s population is at risk.

The disease is carried by certain types of mosquitos and transmitted to humans through bites. Symptoms can include a high fever, severe headaches, swollen glands and joint and muscle pain.

Dengue itself is seldom deadly, according to the WHO, but in some instances it can lead to severe dengue. That can cause respiratory distress, severe bleeding and organ impairment.

About 500,000 people (most of whom are children) need to be hospitalized for severe dengue treatment every year, according to the WHO, and approximately 2.5 percent of those who develop the disease die. Severe dengue has been a major issue in Asia and Latin America, the organization says, and is one of the top causes of hospitalization and death for children there.

The WHO says detecting the disease early enough and having access to medical care facilities drops the dengue mortality rate below 1 percent. The Hawaii Department of Health says it’s still safe to travel to the state, and a CDC official told CNN that the overall risk of getting infected is low because mosquitos in the United States have not been known to transmit the virus well.