Now that Florida has become ground zero for locally-transmitted Zika virus in the United States, researchers are scrambling to quantify the risk to other regions of the country… After running their model in Philadelphia, for example, the scientists predicted that in 14 percent of scenarios, more than 100 people would become infected if Zika was introduced by a traveler returning with the disease. In more than half of the runs of that model, at least one new person was infected. The model also showed that the risk of serious outbreaks rose as the mosquito season lengthened, a concern that would increase should the weather remain hot and sticky later into the year. Such results don’t surprise Dina Fonseca, an entomologist at Rutgers University, who studies the habits of mosquitoes. “Right now we’re entering the most dangerous time in terms of density of Aedes albopictus,” she said, referring to the Asian tiger mosquito. “In July is when they start to go crazy, at least here in New Jersey, but they peak in August.”
For the U.S., a More Worrisome Zika Vector?
For the most part, concern over the spread of the Zika virus in the United States has focused squarely on the tropical breed of mosquito, Aedes aegypti, that has proved most adept at spreading it elsewhere in the world… “Zika is a loose cannon,” said Dina Fonseca, an entomologist at Rutgers University. “Until it’s proven that the virus won’t infect Culex mosquitoes or any other reservoir animals – like the birds that exacerbated the spread of West Nile virus – scientists just don’t know how much of a threat Zika poses.”
