The Zika Virus Has Arrived

Well, we knew this day would come eventually. The Zika virus has finally crossed the border an entered the U.S. 15 cases of locally transmitted Zika virus have been reported in Florida. Officials are stepping up their level of mosquito control efforts in the hopes that we can prevent this disease from spreading too far and becoming the epidemic it has in Brazil. They are spraying the areas of mass infection, an area of roughly 10 miles including Wynwood. Officials are going door-to-door spraying insecticide, handing out cases of insect repellent, and checking for containers of standing water lying around.

While Dr. Tom Frieden says their efforts to control the Aedes aegypti mosquito aren’t proving as effective as they’d hoped and is worried that they have grown resistant to pesticides or are still finding standing water to breed in, other mosquito control experts claim this is no surprise. One expert referred to the Aedes aegypti mosquito as “little ninjas”, pointing out how they can hide in tiny crevices and breed in a container as small as a bottle cap. So far nothing has effectively stopped this mosquito anywhere else in the world except by using genetically altered mosquitos to pass on sterilization genes. This war isn’t over by a long shot.

Do you think the Zika virus will become an epidemic in the U.S.?