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33 U.S. Service Members Have Contracted Zika, Pentagon Says 33 U.S. Service Members Have Contracted Zika, Pentagon Says
(about 7 hours later)
WASHINGTON — More than 30 active-duty American service members — including a pregnant woman — have contracted the Zika virus in countries where the disease has been identified, Pentagon officials said on Wednesday. WASHINGTON — More than 30 active-duty American service members — including a pregnant woman — have contracted the mosquito-borne Zika virus in countries where the disease has been identified, Pentagon officials said on Wednesday.
Maj. Ben Sakrisson, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Defense Department has been tracking the Zika virus in men and women serving abroad since January, and that the number reached 33 this month. Maj. Ben Sakrisson, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Defense Department has been tracking Zika in servicemen and women abroad since January, and that the number had reached 33 this month.
Pentagon officials did not name the countries where the service members contracted the disease, but noted that they were all in nations that have been identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as places where Zika-carrying mosquitoes reside. Pentagon officials did not identify the countries where the service members had contracted the virus, but said that they had all been previously identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as places where mosquitoes with the disease are present.
The Pentagon has informed its personnel in affected areas to take precautions, Major Sakrisson said, and pregnant women in those regions are being given the option of relocating. The Pentagon has informed service members in affected areas to take precautions, Major Sakrisson said, and pregnant women in affected areas are being given the option of relocating. Military personnel in affected areas are advised to use insect repellent and to wear appropriate clothing.
The news was first reported on Monday by Military Times.
As of July 26, the C.D.C. was reporting active Zika virus transmissions in most of Central and South America with the exception of Chile and Uruguay, as well as in Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, the Marshall Islands, American Samoa and Fiji. The C.D.C. was also reporting active Zika transmissions in Cape Verde, off the coast of Senegal.
The Army is working with outside scientists to develop a Zika virus, military officials said.
Last month a Congressional measure to help fund the Zika response died amid bickering between Democrats and Republicans and despite agreement that the virus, which can cause serious birth defects, is a public health emergency. It failed after House Republicans refused to accept a bipartisan compromise reached in the Senate, and inserted clauses that reignited old disputes over government financing for Planned Parenthood.
Last week Florida officials reported the first signs of local transmission of Zika in the continental United States, in a Miami neighborhood. By Monday, federal health officials were urging pregnant women to stay away from the neighborhood, in apparently the first time that the C.D.C. has advised people not to travel to a place in the continental United States.
Officials said that the number of Zika cases in Florida caused by local mosquitoes had risen to 14 from four announced last Friday: 12 men and two women. But they maintained that they did not expect the number of cases there to grow into anything like the epidemic that has raged across Latin America in recent months.
The Pentagon did not give details about the status of the pregnant woman or her baby.
Zika has strained health resources throughout Latin America. The epidemic is now affecting Puerto Rico, with two percent of recent blood donors there reportedly infected, and hundreds of pregnant women testing positive.
The disease has been linked to birth defects like microcephaly. As of July 27, 1,658 cases of Zika in the continental United States and Hawaii have been reported to the C.D.C., with the majority of them contracted through exposure to mosquitoes outside the United States.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican of Florida, sent a letter to the C.D.C. on Wednesday signed by the entire Florida congressional delegation saying that Florida needed more funding to fight Zika.
“The virus is finally here in our community and half-steps and half-measures from federal agencies with the power to do more are of little comfort to families throughout our state,” Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement, which also called the $720,000 of $16 million of new funding allocated to Florida “paltry.”