The Tennessee Department of Health confirms there have been 24 persons diagnosed with Zika virus disease in Tennessee this year. Cases of locally transmitted Zika virus have been identified in a small area in Miami, Florida, but all cases in Tennessee have occurred in people returning from international travel to affected areas. This serves as a reminder that anyone traveling to affected areas should be very careful to avoid mosquito bites during travel and for three weeks after travel. Pregnant women should avoid non-essential travel to affected areas.
To prevent the virus from being spread by mosquitos in Tennessee, TDH officials are reminding residents of the increased need for local tactics to “Fight the Bite.”.
Eliminating standing water where mosquitos can lay eggs and protecting ourselves from their bites by using insect repellants are two of the easiest and most effective ways to’Fight The Bite’ to prevent Zika from spreading in our state,” said TDH Commissioner John Dreyzehner, MD, MPH. “As we see steadily increasing numbers of imported cases of Zika in Tennessee, there’s a heightened need for all of us to prevent this illness from being spread locally by mosquitos.”
Abelardo Moncayo, Ph.D, director of the TDH Vector-Borne Disease program, reminds residents mosquitos can lay eggs in water containers as small as a soda bottle lid and that most mosquitos only travel a few hundred yards from where they are hatched (continue reading)