US widens travel warning in Florida's Miami as more Zika virus cases recorded

US health officials have warned pregnant women to avoid Florida's Miami Beach area after receiving confirmation that the Zika virus is active in the international tourist destination. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday said that pregnant women who are especially worried about exposure to Zika might also consider avoiding all of Miami-Dade County. The virus generally causes mild symptoms in adults, but can cause severe birth defects in the children of pregnant women who become infected with the virus. Rick Scott, governor of Florida, said state health officials have identified five cases of Zika believed to have been contracted in Miami Beach.
"This means we believe we have a new area where local transmissions are occurring in Miami Beach," he said, noting that Florida had already stepped up pesticide-spraying efforts in this area.
"All three of these people travelled to Miami," Scott said.
In Miami Beach, officials say, Zika transmission is confined to a 1.5sq mile area located between 8th and 28th streets in the popular South Beach neighbourhood. The new warnings represent a challenge to Florida's multi-billion-dollar tourism industry, with Miami Beach accounting for nearly half of visitor stays in the Greater Miami area. The virus, spread primarily via mosquitoes, has seriously affected Latin America in recent months.
Earlier on Friday, US health officials published a study estimating that as many as 270 babies in the territory of Puerto Rico may be born with the severe birth defect known as microcephaly caused by Zika infections in their mothers during pregnancy. A public health emergency was declared in Puerto Rico on August 12 after more than 10,000 laboratory-confirmed cases were recorded, including more than a thousand pregnant women. The condition, in which infants are born with abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains, is estimated to cost $10m over the lifetime of one child. The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last autumn in Brazil, which has now confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infection in the mothers.
Source: Aljazeera