Is Zika virus on its way to NJ?

Zika virus has been detected in Texas and Florida, so we asked: Could it migrate to South Jersey?

Local experts say probably not anytime soon.

Primarily transmitted to humans by a tropical mosquito called Aedes aegypti, the virus has been recently linked to thousands of infants born with birth defects. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has issued travel warnings to people visiting places where mosquitoes are infecting humans with the virus. Those places include South America, Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Cape Verde.

And yes, though small pockets of Aedes aegypti mosquito have been detected on a few occasions in South Jersey, they aren’t passing the virus around, explained Claude Krummenacher, a virus expert and assistant biomedical professor at Rowan University in Glassboro.

“I would say, presently at least, there are not a lot of worries to have,” Krummenacher said. In the United States, the pest is normally found around the Gulf of Mexico, though it can range as far north as Virginia. Brought here on boats and planes, Aedes aegypti can’t survive New Jersey’s winters.

The Zika virus is making its way from the mosquitoes of tropical countries into the U.S. through infected travelers.

New Jersey has had one laboratory-confirmed case already: a woman from Colombia who was visiting family in Bergen County over Thanksgiving when she became ill. She later recovered and returned home, according to the New Jersey Department of Health.

It is closely related to the Aedes albopictus, or the Asian tiger mosquito, which appeared here in South Jersey in 1985 and colonized the area. It’s not clear if that mosquito can carry Zika virus, Krummenacher said, though it is a known carrier for other diseases, such as dengue fever and West Nile virus.

New Jersey also has an extensive mosquito control system in place, Krummenacher said, and these mosquitoes don’t travel very far.

“This is really not Brazil,” he said.

In South Jersey, “it’s not a concern right now,” agreed Jack Sworaski, who leads the Camden County Mosquito Commission. While it’s impossible to eradicate mosquitoes, he explained, there haven’t been any locally transmitted cases of the disease.

As Zika infections explode across Central and South America, New Jersey health experts and entomologists are keeping a close eye on the situation. In the Southern Hemisphere, the virus has prompted advisories that women postpone getting pregnant — even in areas where family planning is scarce.

“We’re kind of still in the learning phase,” said Mike Romanowski, superintendent of the Ocean County Mosquito Extermination Commission. “There hasn’t been any discussion on testing for it yet.”

Mosquito control commissions from across New Jersey were scheduled to meet this week, but Romanowski said there are no definitive plans yet to test local mosquitoes for the virus.

Only about one in five people infected with Zika develop symptoms: fever, joint pain, rash and red eyes, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Most infected people never develop signs, and deaths are rare.

But health experts suspect the virus is connected to other devastating conditions: a spike in the number of Brazilian babies born with rare birth defects of the skull and brain, as well as an autoimmune paralysis called Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Though Zika used to circulate sporadically through Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, Dr. Rajendra Kapila, an infectious-disease expert at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, said this is the disease’s first time spreading into the Americas.

“We have no immunity” in the Americas, said Kapila. “That’s why it spreads like wildfire.”

On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared states of emergencies in four counties where returning travelers were diagnosed with the Zika virus.

Small heads and birth defects

Since the first Brazilian outbreak was discovered in early 2015, Zika has spread north through South and Central America all the way to Mexico and the Caribbean, according to the CDC. Since then, Brazilian doctors noticed a sharp increase in the number of babies born with microcephaly, a rare abnormality in which infants are born with small skulls and brains. Microcephaly, which can cause lifelong learning delays, sometimes results from problems during pregnancy such as malnutrition, chromosomal abnormalities or infections, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Yet, scientists have so far been unable to say for sure if Zika is causing the spike in birth defects in South America.

“It looks like there’s an association that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have obtained from Brazil,” said Dr. Joseph Apuzzio, a high-risk obstetrician with Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. “There is no definitive cause and effect.”

New Jersey obstetricians are now screening pregnant women who have recently traveled to countries where the Zika virus is circulating, Apuzzio said. Microcephaly, if connected to the virus, could take weeks or months to show up in a fetus after infection, he said.

Apuzzio and the CDC advise pregnant women to avoid traveling to countries where Zika is active. The CDC is also instructing doctors to test all pregnant women who traveled to a country with an active outbreak and who develop symptoms of the disease within two weeks.

Apuzzio said the Zika virus crosses the placenta in pregnant mothers and enters a fetus’ amniotic fluid, but whether the infection causes microcephaly is still unclear.

Despite the warnings, Apuzzio expects no major health crisis in New Jersey because of Zika.

“I don’t see it becoming a big issue,” he said. “Patients from the continental United States, if they’re thinking about going to the Caribbean for vacation or Central or South America, that might not be a good idea if they’re pregnant or want to become pregnant.”

Prevention

In New Jersey, residents can help limit the mosquito population by eliminating their breeding grounds, Sworaski advised. The skeeters lay eggs in standing pools of water: in trash can lids, children’s toys, clogged gutters and flower pots.

In warm weather, Aedes albopictus develops from egg to mosquito in three days, said Wayne Wurtz, who supervises Gloucester County’s Mosquito Control. The season normally starts heating up in April, when the temperature creeps above 50 degrees. They can hopscotch through a neighborhood, from one property to another.

“We need people to be very vigilant with their back yards,” Wurtz said. “You name it. If it will hold water, these mosquitoes will breed in it.”

Gloucester County is adding more collection traps this year, so Wurtz and his staff can closely monitor known breeding sites, said Gloucester County’s public works director, Vince Votaggio. Counties work closely with the state to count and identify the mosquito population.

“If a problem area crops up,” Votaggio said, “we’re going to hit it very hard.”

Kim Mulford: (856) 486-2448; kmulford@gannettnj.com. Amanda Oglesby:

732-557-5701; aoglesby@gannettnj.com

More Information

Aedes mosquitoes are visually distinctive because they have noticeable black and white markings on their body and legs. Their peak biting periods are early in the morning and in the evening before dusk.

The Zika virus first appeared for the first time in 1947 in Uganda. The Aedes mosquito, above, spreads Zika. Unlike the flu, it does not spread from person-to-person. Mosquitoes that bite an infected person can spread it to future victims. Zika was first detected in Brazil in May. Researchers suspect the virus may have arrived in South America during the 2014 World Cup Games in Brazil. Zika usually causes no symptoms.