New Jersey Mosquito Control: CDC Confirms Zika Virus is Sexually-transmitted

LINDEN, N.J.- With over 2 billion people in the world living in areas considered to be at risk of contracting the Zika virus through insect bites, even the coldest populated areas of the world are now at risk. The CDC has recently confirmed that the Zika virus can indeed be spread through sex and is now seeing cases where sexual contact is the cause of infection throughout the world. The report comes nearly two years after initially isolating the virus in semen at a lab located in French Polynesia. Earlier this year, the first case of the sexual-transmission of the virus was confirmed in Dallas. The reported case was soon followed by nearly two dozen others and shows no signs of slowing, making mosquito control in the US a growing concern.

The World Health Organization has already declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern”. This comes at a time where the virus has also been linked to microcephaly, a disorder which is characterized by the failure of the brain to grow and thusly is responsible below-average head size. The condition affects nearly 25,000 children in the US per year, but it is not the only health concern associated with the virus. Microcephaly makes up only 1% of the 29% of fetuses that will show growth abnormalities in pregnant women who have tested positive.

This has led some South and Central American countries, like El Salvador, Brazil, Columbia and Ecuador, to request their female population to refrain from having children for the next two years. With prevention at the forefront, the possibility of a population gap is a very real concern. Mosquitoes have always been a notoriously difficult pest to control, as treatment of breeding sites by a pest professional yields the best results, but is normally replace by over-the-counter means of control. With an invasive and aggressive species of mosquito, like the Asian tiger mosquito, terrorizing Americans during the daytime, it is easy to see how the desire for prevention is growing exponentially this summer.