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Still more Miami-Dade mosquitoes test positive for Zika

in Statewide by

Yet another batch of mosquitoes in Miami Beach has tested positive for the Zika virus.

The results were in the same location “where five other samples had previously tested positive,” the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services announced Saturday.

The latest positive sample of Aedes aeqypti mosquitoes was from a trap located on West 49th Street in Miami Beach, according to a news release.

The county’s Mosquito Control team “will continue to conduct inspections to reduce mosquito breeding and perform spray treatments as necessary in a 200-yard radius around the trap location,” the department said.

The Zika virus can cause severe birth defects, including microcephaly, where babies are born with abnormally small heads.

Congress finally OK’ed $1.1 billion this week to fight the virus, after stalling out several times.

“We repeatedly called for months to get something done,” Gov. Rick Scott said on a conference call. “This is all about pregnant women and making sure they have healthy babies.”

According to the Department of Health, there are now 948 documented cases of Zika infection in Florida and 15 active investigations. The department has done Zika testing on more than 8,500 people across the state.

The governor has pressed for a Zika vaccine, though experts say if they started now, one wouldn’t be ready for public use for several years.

Before joining Florida Politics, journalist and attorney James Rosica was state government reporter for The Tampa Tribune. He attended journalism school in Washington, D.C., working at dailies and weekly papers in Philadelphia after graduation. Rosica joined the Tallahassee Democrat in 1997, later moving to the courts beat, where he reported on the 2000 presidential recount. In 2005, Rosica left journalism to attend law school in Philadelphia, afterwards working part time for a public-interest law firm. Returning to writing, he covered three legislative sessions in Tallahassee for The Associated Press, before joining the Tribune’s re-opened Tallahassee bureau in 2013. He can be reached at [email protected]

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