There has been widespread concern and uncertainty about the spread and effects of the Zika Virus. Recently a mother gave birth to the first U.S.-born infant with the tragic birth defects related to the virus in Harris County, Texas, Zika. The woman was infected while traveling in Columbia, but experts are bracing themselves for a second wave of Zika-infected expectant mothers.
Doctors have few answers as to why one child suffers the head and brain deformity known as microcephaly or why another will not. But the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has elevated its Emergency Operations Center protocol to Level 1 in response to the serious threat Zika poses. The EOC has only been triggered to this extent three times previously, post-Hurricane Katrina, during the H1N1 flu outbreak, and when the Ebola crisis struck. Compounding the issue, health officials have confirmed that the virus can be sexually transmitted.
Unfortunately, very little is being done to stop the spread of the virus between mosquitoes and hosts in the United States. There is no known treatment for the virus, mainly because scientists didn’t recognize how serious the implications were to pregnant women until recently. People in the health community saw Zika as something that merely caused a mild rash, red eyes, a fever or joint pains as a worst case scenario. Doctors were simply telling patients to take Tylenol and stay hydrated. Although, President Obama recently requested $1.9 billion in funds to combat Zika and mosquitoes infected with it, Congress has gotten bogged down haggling over how much to allocate and where the funds should come from. Regardless of the amount thrown at Zika, the National Institute of Health won’t even be able to launch a safety trial until September on a vaccine they are tweaking that was originally for West Nile. This puts people in warm climate states at higher risk for the duration of the dog days summer and into early fall, And, there are no assurances this vaccine will work or if it can be fast-tracked to the rising number of infected people.
While most cases of Zika go unnoticed, more than 1,400 have been reported in the United States and more than 3,800 in U.S. territories, according to the CDC. Health officials are urging people to use insect repellents, be cognizant of standing pools that can allow mosquitoes to breed and take measures to destroy the insects whenever possible. If you’re local government isn’t taking immediate and ongoing measures to reduce the mosquito population, it may be time to contact a mosquito control specialist for your own safety and peace of mind.