Feeding mosquitoes artificial blood could help get them ready to go out in the world and stanch the flow of disease — and reduce the need for animal blood
About 5 percent of pregnant women infected with Zika in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories last year had babies with birth defects, says the federal health agency. And the risk isn't over.
In the Florida Keys, no cases of locally transmitted Zika have been reported, but officials have decided to go ahead with trials of a genetically modified mosquito to combat the spread of the disease.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now urges pregnant women to "consider postponing travel to all parts of Miami-Dade County." Zika is on the way to becoming an endemic disease in the U.S.
The message about reducing the risk from the Aedes aegypti mosquito is the same today as it was 70 years ago. This time there's just a new virus involved.
Meet Aedes aegypti. It's an ideal spreader of disease — from its attraction to trash to its habit of sipping blood from lots of folks in one feeding spree.
