Mosquito season in Florida lasts into the fall, and with spread of Zika over the last year or so, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued some travel advisories for the state. Most of Miami-Dade County falls under this advisory. However, the CDC has lifted its advisory on the Wynwood area north of Miami, since it has been 45 days since any new Zika cases were reported.
Mosquitos have an incubation period of 15 days, so 45 days actually represents several generations of the biting insects. Thus, if there haven’t been any new cases during that time frame, it seems likely that the mosquito population is no longer able to spread the disease.
Unfortunately, the news isn’t all good. Florida Governor Rick Scott announced that in mid-September of 2016, the Miami Beach Zika advisory zone had been expanded to cover 4.5 square miles. State health officials found five people who had experienced symptoms of the disease, three of whom were in the newly expanded area.
State officials said that aggressive mosquito control measures were responsible for stopping the spread of the virus in Wynwood, and that they were going to drastically increase those efforts in the Miami Beach area.
But there is still reason for caution. Zika doesn’t manifest immediately, so the CDC is still urging people in the area to avoid travel to the affected regions. Pregnant women are especially urged to avoid areas that are, or recently were, under a Zika travel advisory.
While the disease doesn’t do much harm to people infected with it, it has been connected to microcephaly and other birth defects, hence the focus on pregnant women.
The CDC is urging people who have been to an area under a Zika travel advisory to wait two months before trying to become pregnant, just in case symptoms haven’t manifested yet. The organization is also suggesting that men who have had symptoms been in the affected areas, wait six months before attempting to get a partner pregnant.