Nearly 300 Zika cases in Texas

As of last Thursday, Texas had 298 Zika cases, including 16 in Cameron County, according to the Department of State Health Services.

Last month, the Cameron County Department of Health and Human Services reported a total of 16 Zika cases. Six are local and 10 are travel-related cases.

“Since we began tracking in December of 2015 … 16 cases [have been found] in Cameron County. That is 16 in total, so that would include the six local cases and 10 travel-related cases,” said Chris Van Deusen, media director at the Texas Department of State Health Services in Austin.

In November 2016, a 43-year-old woman from Brownsville tested positive for the Zika virus and reported no recent travel. She was not pregnant.

“The first case was identified, you know, a woman got sick and went to the doctor and the very astute doctor thought it seemed like Zika and ordered a Zika test. That led to response by the local health department and the City of Brownsville mosquito control and, of course, our department as well to go door-to-door in the neighborhood around where that first patient lives and talk to people about Zika,” Van Deusen said.

The door-to-door education effort led by Cameron County Department of Health and Human Services found four more individuals who tested positive between the 14th Street and International Boulevard area in Brownsville, Van Deusen said.

The individuals did not show Zika symptoms when the public health workers conducted the education effort.

“[They] didn’t have symptoms when first the public health workers went to visit them. But, they got sick very shortly after that and they recognized the symptoms as possibly being Zika. … They got tested and it turns out that they were indeed cases of Zika,” Van Deusen said.

As previously reported by The Rider, in 2015, a 57-year-old woman from Brownsville traveled to Chiapas, Mexico, over the Christmas holidays and contracted the virus, making it the first possible traveled-related case in the Rio Grande Valley.

Marco Lozano, director of Health Emergency Response at the Cameron County Department of Health and Human Services, told The Rider the first travel-related case was diagnosed as a flavivirus unspecified.

“On Sept.1, there was a reclassification of definition from the Texas Department of State Health Services. Based on the reclassification, all cases in 2015 that were flavivirus unspecified were looked at again and this case, in particular, was reclassified from flavivirus unspecified to a probable Zika virus disease,” Lozano said in a September interview with The Rider.

The four common Zika symptoms are rash, fever, conjunctivitis and joint pain.

“Right now, we are encouraging anyone who has Zika symptoms, and that would be three or more Zika symptoms, anywhere in the state to be tested for Zika. … All pregnant women who live in Brownsville or visit Brownsville should be tested,” Van Deusen said. “We are testing people anywhere in the state and we have been doing that most of the year throughout public health labs throughout the state of Texas and, of course, private labs are doing it, too.”

UTRGV Biology Associate Professor Christopher Vitek said the major concern about contracting the virus is for women who are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.

“For the vast majority of people, Zika is actually asymptomatic, meaning people who are infected with the disease are not going to know it; they are not going to show any symptoms. The concern is for women who are pregnant or plan to become pregnant because of the effects the Zika virus may have for the developing fetus,” Vitek said.

Wearing light-colored clothing and using mosquito repellent are measures to prevent contracting the virus, Vitek said.