Goodbye and hopefully good riddance to the dreaded Zika virus.
Citing a reduction in Zika virus transmission in Central and South America, and the smaller number of Zika virus disease cases reported in Florida in 2017, the Florida Department of Health, the Bureau of Preparedness and Response and the Bureau of Epidemiology, have demobilized the state Zika Incident Management Team (IMT).
Florida had 1,469 cases of Zika last year. So far in 2017, that number is down to 239.
The shutting down of the state’s IMT means that, due to lower number of reported cases, “further response to Zika will be handled like any other disease,” said Patrick Boyd, spokesman for the Citrus County Health Department.
But to play it safe, the Citrus County Zika Planning & Advisory Group will not disband.
“(It) will continue to receive notifications as needed — until we’re instructed to do otherwise,” Boyd said. “If we were to receive notification of a locally acquired case of Zika here in Citrus County, the Planning & Advisory Group would still need to implement our action plan.”
The state’s announcement comes after more than a year-and-a-half of tracking, monitoring, and planning to reduce and eliminate the threat of the disease in Florida. The state had written a “Zika playbook” complete with guidelines for dealing with travel-related and locally acquired infections. The local planning group also formalized an action plan so that if the virus became a threat in Citrus County, steps were ready to combat it.
The Zika virus can be transmitted through bites from infected mosquitoes, sexual contact or from an infected pregnant mother to her unborn child. There were two travel-related cases of Zika in Citrus County in 2016 and none this year.
Boyd thanked the Citrus County Mosquito Control District for its help in combating the Zika threat.
“Without them, I’m pretty sure we’d all be carried away by mosquitoes,” he said. “We will continue to monitor notifications in our local area. We sincerely hope we’ve seen the last of the Zika virus.”
Contact Chronicle reporter Michael D. Bates at 352-563-5660 ext. 1205 or mbates@chronicleonline.com.
from virus zika - Google News http://ift.tt/2l6JQp0
EmoticonEmoticon