MIAMI _ Mosquitoes are spreading Zika virus in Miami Beach, according to sources familiar with discussions held by the Florida Department of Health on Thursday to alert local officials.
The health department's daily report said only that there were two new local infections in Miami-Dade _ both outside of the Wynwood neighborhood identified as the only area in the state with ongoing transmission. The department did not respond to questions about active transmission of Zika in Miami Beach, the heart of the region's tourism industry.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to advise pregnant women to avoid domestic travel to a one-square-mile area of Wynwood. And Florida Gov. Rick Scott repeated on Thursday that he believes Zika is spreading only in that area, even as the number of local infections outside the square mile increased to nine cases, with one in Palm Beach and eight in other parts of Miami-Dade.
Scott announced the new local cases Thursday before Florida's health department issued its daily report. In his news release, he emphasized a new program to help Miami-Dade's tourism industry fight Zika with measures such as spraying for mosquitoes at state expense.
"Tourism is a driving force of Florida's economy and this industry has the full support of our state in the fight against the Zika virus," Scott said in the statement, noting that the state's Department of Economic Opportunity would be surveying local businesses to assess their needs.
Scott also ordered the state's health agency and the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to provide educational materials and free pesticide spraying to local businesses.
Florida health officials have confirmed 35 local Zika infections so far, with all but nine cases occurring in the Wynwood area. The health department said it is conducting nine active investigations into local Zika cases.
In addition, the department announced 18 new travel-related cases on Thursday, with seven in Miami-Dade, four in Palm Beach, three in Broward, one in Brevard, one in Lee, one in Marion and one in Pinellas counties. A total of 577 people in Florida have contracted Zika this year, according to the health department, including 63 pregnant women.
South Florida's hospitality industry has dreaded the possibility of Zika spreading to Miami Beach because the region's economy relies heavily on its $24 billion-a-year tourism industry. More than half of the hotel rooms in Miami-Dade are located in Miami Beach.
Starting early Thursday morning, Miami Beach public works officials and code compliance officers were dispatched to neighborhoods to inspect for mosquito breeding sites.
City Manager Jimmy Morales said in a written statement that the city is in constant communication with the health department regarding the most effective approach to mosquito control.
"Our strategy has been and will continue to be focusing on the elimination of potential breeding sites and educating our residents and businesses on what they need to do," Morales said in the statement. "We are also working with the county and they are also inspecting and as needed mitigating through techniques like clean ups, larvicides and fogging."
The first area in the continental United States with ongoing Zika transmission was identified by Scott on July 29, when he announced that the virus was being spread by local mosquitoes in Wynwood.
But at least nine new local cases of Zika have cropped up outside of that zone in Wynwood since then, including one in Southwest Miami-Dade that State Surgeon General Celeste Philip acknowledged on Aug. 2.
Since then the number of new Zika infections outside of Wynwood has risen steadily. On Wednesday, the health department reported three new local Zika infections in Miami-Dade, including one inside the Wynwood zone and two others outside of it.
Epidemiologists continue to interview residents and collect blood and urine samples inside the designated zone, but they also have launched investigations in other areas with local cases.
Florida health officials have said repeatedly that one case does not mean active transmission is occurring in an area. Instead, health officials investigate each case by interviewing and taking blood and urine samples from close contacts and neighbors around each infected person.
The Zika response plan published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June notes that "a starting point" for defining an area of local transmission is two or more infections (not related to travel or sex) among people who do not share the same household, occurring within a one-mile diameter in two or more weeks.
