Floods in Louisiana could provide a hospitable home to Zika-carrying mosquitoes, thus increasing the risk of local transmission in the southern state, experts told USA Today.
While strong floodwaters can sometimes wash mosquito eggs away, eggs already laid by disease-transmitting mosquitoes in debris like empty buckets or tires could be protected from surging waters and subsequently thrive after the waters recede.
To date, there have been no locally transmitted cases of Zika reported in the state of Louisiana and flooding does not necessarily correlate to an increased risk of mosquito-borne illness in the region. However, while Florida is currently the only state experiencing local Zika transmission, Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told USA Today local transmission could be occurring undetected in Louisiana. Of those infected with the Zika virus, 80 percent never exhibit symptoms.
"We could be seeing an increase number of Aedes aegypti [mosquitoes] now in the coming weeks," said Dr. Hotez. "This is crunch time."
Ben Beard, PhD, deputy incident manager for the Zika CDC's outbreak program, told USA Today, "I wouldn't say right off that there's reason to believe that (the flooding) would have significant impact." Dr. Beard added that if local mosquito monitoring authorities did detect an increase in the Aedes aegypti population, such an uptick would trigger a major Zika prevention response.
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