The Zika outbreak in Florida is getting bigger as expected. Mosquitoes are spreading the virus in Miami Beach and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised pregnant women to avoid traveling to all parts of Miami-Dade County.
Report says that only 37 people have caught the virus in Miami Beach in Miami-Dade County so far. However, scientists are worried that the outbreak and the widespread of the virus are larger than the number of cases shows, as reported by NPR.
"Zika is one of those diseases that is always like an iceberg - you just see the tip," says Alessandro Vespignani. He is a computer scientistat Northeastern University in Boston. He works with modeling the spread of the virus.
Vespignani explains that most of the Zika victims do not know that they are infected. Around four in five people do not have any symptoms. Those who have mild symptoms often mistaken the infection as flu. Only about five percent of cases get detected, he added.
Vespignani, along with his colleagues built computer models to estimate the number of silent infections in Miami. According to Ira Longinia biostatistician at the University of Florida, who works with Vespignani, they estimated that there will be 395 infected people by September 15 in Florida.
On the other hand, Governor Rick Scott asked Washington for more help in fighting Zika virus on his third visit to Miami since the nation's first Zika outbreak. He asked the CDC for an additional 5,000 Zika antibody tests and 10,000 prevention kits to Florida. The federal officials promised to fill it by Tuesday, according to Miami Herald.
During a roundtable meeting in the De Hostos Senior Center in Wynwood, Scott stated that Florida is "working hard" in fighting the virus and provide the resources it can. He appeared with U.S. Reps. Carlos Curbelo, a Republican; and Frederica Wilson, a Democrat as well as Mayor Philip Levine of Miami Beach and Mayor Carlos Gimenez of Miami-Dade County in a bi-partisan push to get a Zika budget from the federal.
At the Wynwood Meeting, Scott promised to send Miami-Dade an additional $5 million to help offset the county's expenses for an increased effort to control the mosquitoes. There will be aerial spraying in Wynwood and trucks and backpack foggers in Miami Beach.