Taking the bite out of Zika

By Ana Rodriguez Soto - Florida Catholic newspaper

MIAMI | Their lessons well-learned, the students of St. Mary Cathedral School recited them for Florida’s governor.

How do you prevent mosquitoes from biting you? Gov. Rick Scott asked a classroom of first through eighth graders as news crews surrounded them.

Fifth-grader Brian Weir listed the ways: Wear repellent. Get rid of any containers of standing water.

You’re absolutely correct, replied the governor, who visited the school Oct. 21 to meet with community leaders about the Zika virus. The Little River neighborhood where the cathedral is located is the third area in Miami-Dade County to be designated a Zika transmission zone.

Earlier in the week, representatives of the county’s health department had visited the cathedral school to teach the students how to stay safe from the virus, which has been linked to birth defects in unborn children. Officials hope the children will take those lessons back to their parents and neighbors.

“Everybody here is very focused on how we stop the spread of Zika,” Gov. Scott said during the roundtable discussion with local government officials. They included U.S. Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, who represents the affected area; Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez; and Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales.

“The way to prevent Zika is through education,” said Rep. Wilson. “The hurricane blew away some of the mosquitoes but we expect them to return.”

Miami’s Wynwood section was the first zone where locally transmitted cases of Zika were detected at the end of June. It was removed as an area of active transmission at the end of September, after 45 days without new cases.

Miami Beach, where Zika cases were first detected in mid-July, will be declared free of active transmissions Nov. 14, if no new cases arise.

The mosquito-borne virus was first detected in the Little River area Oct. 13. This newest Zika “box” extends from N.W. 79th Street in the north to N.W. 63rd St. in the south, and from N.W. 10th Ave. in the west to N. Miami Ave. in the east.

So far, 1,051 cases of Zika infection have been identified in the state of Florida, 747 of them travel-related, according to the Florida Department of Health. An additional 111 infections involved pregnant women.

The health department is advising women who are pregnant to avoid traveling into Zika zones, and also suggested they undergo testing for the virus. County health clinics are offering the simple blood test for free, but there’s a four-to-six-week lag in getting the results.

Miami-Dade County is also conducting ongoing inspections — 12,000 in Miami Beach, 2,000 in Little River so far — to reduce the number of mosquitoes in the area. They are using trucks to spray mosquito-killing chemicals and walking door-to-door to both spray and reduce the number of places where mosquitoes can breed.

“We don’t think that aerial spraying is warranted now because of the low mosquito counts we see in our traps,” Mayor Gimenez said. The average is about five mosquitoes per trap.

The county also is passing out repellent in the form of easily-applied wipes. And the City of Miami has partnered with TV personality Dr. Gadget to give residents in the affected area a device that attracts and traps mosquitoes.

Gov. Scott praised all those efforts, saying county and city officials are doing “an outstanding job.”

The State of Florida has allocated $61 million to the fight against Zika, a large percentage of which has been designated for Miami-Dade County.

“It’s the only county where we see ongoing active transmission,” Gov. Scott said.

Of that total, $25 million will go to research, both to develop a blood test that yields quicker results and to create “the ultimate solution,” a vaccine against the virus.

Rep. Wilson noted that Miami-Dade has become “an open laboratory” for Zika.

“But we’re never going to get down to zero,” said Mayor Gimenez. “We all have to take some personal responsibility and avoid the bite.”

“Wherever you live in Dade County, you need to be careful,” said Miami Beach’s Morales, comparing mosquito repellent to sunscreen. “We have to wear it all the time in South Florida.”

Residents also have to be constantly on alert for areas of standing water, even in the most unexpected places. Officials have found that a beautiful and ubiquitous South Florida plant, called bromeliad, provides the perfect habitat for mosquitoes because of the way the flower retains water.

The county has begun removing them and will not be planting any new ones, Mayor Gimenez said. “Why give (the mosquitoes) their favorite habitat?”

In the meantime, “what happened here in the classroom is key,” Gov. Scott said, “not only for children but for the adult population.”

Father Christopher Marino, rector of St. Mary Cathedral, thanked the governor for his visit and noted that the cathedral school has been educating children for nearly 80 years.

“Reading, writing and arithmetic,” he said. “Now it’s the Z for Zika. That’s what we do.”