The Latest: CDC: Aerial spraying, naled helped curb Zika

MIAMI – The Latest on the active Zika transmission zone being lifted in one Miami neighbourhood (all times local):

11 a.m.

U.S. health officials say they are ending their strongest warning to pregnant women to stay out of Miami’s Wynwood arts district.

No new cases of mosquito-borne Zika illness have been reported in that area since early August, and in the past several weeks, mosquito control workers have seen only low numbers of the kind of bugs that are the main spreaders of the virus.

Health officials said Monday they credit aggressive aerial spraying with naled, a pesticide that targets adult mosquitoes, and Bti, which kills mosquito larva.

Dr. Lyle Petersen of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called it “a huge success.” He says the outbreak would have kept going “without the aerial spraying.”

While the CDC lifted its sternest warning to pregnant women, the agency noted that a mosquito transmission zone in nearby Miami Beach last week grew from an areas of roughly 1.5 miles to 4.5 miles, after a cluster of new cases popped up north of some earlier reports.

The agency continues to advise that pregnant women consider postponing non-essential travel to all of Miami-Dade County —including the Wynwood area.

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9:51 a.m.

Florida’s governor says Miami’s Wynwood arts district is no longer considered a zone of active Zika transmission.

Health officials in late July said the neighbourhood north of downtown Miami was the first place in the U.S. mainland to have mosquitoes transmitting the virus to people.

Gov. Rick Scott said Monday it’s been 45 days since the last Zika infection in Wynwood.

Scott says aggressive mosquitoes control, code enforcement, and co-operating from residents and business that drained standing water helped stop Zika’s spread.

Local officials said they expect the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to lift a travel advisory warning pregnant women and their partners to avoid Wynwood.

Scott said officials are working to stop Zika’s spread in Miami Beach. The state Health department late Friday said the infection zone now includes most of the 7-mile-long (11kilometres) island.