Florida's governor today announced five more locally acquired Zika cases, one of them in Pinellas County, the state's first non-travel–related case reported outside of South Florida.
In other developments, a Brazil-led team published a new report outlining the spectrum of severe brain changes seen before and after birth in affected babies, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added the Bahamas to its Zika travel advisory.
Florida's local cases rise to 42
Pinellas County, on Florida's Gulf coast, is 280 miles northwest of Miami-Dade and includes the St. Petersburg and Clearwater metropolitan areas. Health officials are still investigating the case and haven't named it as an active Zika transmission area.
However, Gov. Rick Scott said in a statement today that door-to-door outreach and sampling is under way in Pinellas County and that aggressive mosquito control activities are taking place.
The other four local cases announced today are all from the Wynwood active transmission area, just north of downtown Miami. Today's developments lift Florida's local Zika case total to 42.
Regarding Wynwood, Scott said further testing has cleared the entire perimeter of the neighborhood, shrinking that active transmission area to a one-half-square-mile area.
Both of Florida's current active transmission areas are in Miami-Dade County. On Aug 19, officials confirmed a second area—a 1.5-square-mile section of Miami Beach. Health officials, however, are investigating several individual cases in the area that are outside those two neighborhoods.
Zika birth-defect imaging, CDC Bahamas advisory
- In other Zika news, Brazilian researchers, with collaborators in other countries, today profiled a host of severe radiographic prenatal and postnatal findings in Zika-affected babies, including some features and patterns that aren't typical for microcephaly linked to other viral diseases. They published their findings in Radiology. Their analysis included computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound. Microcephaly was just one of the brain changes they observed. The team documented cortical malformations and changes at the white-gray matter junction, reduction in brain volume, and larger-than-normal fluid-filled spaces in ventriculomegaly.
- The CDC today added the Bahamas to its level 2 travel notice for Zika virus. It said local Zika virus transmission has been reported on the island of New Providence, which includes the city of Nassau. In its travel advisories for Zika, the CDC urges pregnant women to avoid affected areas and for their sexual partners and those thinking of becoming pregnant to take certain precautions.
See also:
Aug 23 Gov Rick Scott statement
