2 Mahoning women test positive for Zika

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

milliken@vindy.com

AUSTINTOWN

The Mahoning County District Board of Health has reported the first cases of county residents testing positive for the Zika virus.

One is a 26-year-old Youngstown woman who traveled to Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory where mosquitoes are known to transmit Zika.

The other is a 52-year-old woman residing elsewhere in the county who traveled to St. Lucia, which is a Caribbean island.

Neither Patricia Sweeney, county health commissioner, nor Melanie Amato, Ohio Department of Health public information officer, specifically identified the community of residence of the 52-year-old.

Still, officials sought to tamp down any fear about Thursday’s revelation.

“These local cases are not a threat to the public health of residents in Mahoning County,” Sweeney said.

Neither Mahoning County case has been hospitalized and neither is under quarantine, Amato said.

The two residents found to have Zika were tested after they showed Zika symptoms, Amato said.

Twenty-one Ohio residents have tested positive for Zika; 20 of them traveled to the tropics.

The remaining case was transmitted in Ohio from a man to his wife after the man had traveled to the tropics, Amato said.

No residents of Trumbull and Columbiana counties have tested positive for Zika, Amato said.

There have been 822 travel-associated Zika cases in the United States, Sweeney said.

No known Zika cases have been acquired from mosquitoes within the 50 states, she added.

Zika is spread primarily by the bite of the infected mosquito, Aedes aegypti, and not person to person, Sweeney said.

That mosquito is found mainly in the tropics and Southern U.S., she added.

To transmit Zika from one person to another, a mosquito would have to bite the source person while that person is symptomatic, live long enough to incubate the virus and bite someone else, Amato said.

That mosquito is very rare in Ohio, with ODH having trapped only a few of them, none recently, Amato said.

Eighty percent of Zika-infected people have no symptoms, Sweeney said.

Symptoms, which begin two to seven days after someone is bitten by an infected mosquito, are fever, rash, red eyes, joint and muscle pain and headache.

Symptoms are generally mild and usually last no longer then a week, with hospitalization being uncommon, Sweeney said.

Zika is associated with birth defects, such as babies being born with small heads, and with Guillain-Barre syndrome, which attacks the immune system and can cause paralysis.

“Residents who travel to countries where the Zika virus is prevalent should follow travel precautions and prevent mosquito bites,” Sweeney said.

“We recommend that, after travelers return to Ohio, they wear an EPA-approved insect repellent for three weeks” after visiting the tropics and refrain from unprotected sex, Amato said.

Noting that mosquitoes can locally spread the West Nile virus and La Crosse encephalitis, Sweeney advised everyone to have intact door and window screens and wear insect repellent.

Amato advised wearing long sleeves and long pants and avoiding being outdoors at dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most active.

“Clear all standing water,” Amato advised, referring to accumulations in scrap tires, toys and empty flower pots after it rains.

Drain birdbaths frequently, she urged.