SU professor calls Cuomo’s expanded Zika virus testing an ‘overreaction’

A Syracuse University professor of public health said that there is little threat of the Zika virus spreading across the United States.

The virus has been linked to a birth defect called microcephaly, which causes severe underdevelopment in the brains of newborn babies. It is transmitted by both the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitos, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website.

David Larsen, the assistant professor of public health at the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, said the U.S. is habitable for the Ae. albopictus mosquitos but not the Ae. aegypti mosquitos.

“Most people in the U.S. have air conditioning,” he said. “That invention along with window screens greatly decreases our contact with mosquitos, and we don’t have a huge mosquito-borne illness problem.”

Larsen’s comments come in response to New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Feb. 4 announcement that he was directing the New York State Department of Health to expand a program that tests pregnant women who may have been exposed to the Zika virus.

While the Wadsworth Center in Albany had already began testing on symptomatic New Yorkers, the program will now be expanded for pregnant women who have traveled to areas where there have been evidence of infections from the virus, regardless of whether the women have had any symptoms of the virus, according to a press release from Cuomo’s office.

“These actions will help us continue to ensure the safety of New Yorkers,” Cuomo said in the release. “We are in constant communication with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and are taking proactive steps to raise public awareness, address any potential cases of Zika, and protect the public health.”

Additionally, the CDC is recommending that pregnant women either abstain from sexual intercourse or a use a condom when having any sexual contact with a male partner who has traveled to an area where the transmission of the Zika virus is active, according to the release.

Larsen said that because the Ae. aegypti and the Ae. albopictus mosquitos also carry the dengue disease, which hasn’t spread across the U.S., there should be little fear about the Zika virus spreading.

The Ae. aegypti mosquitos are very rare in the U.S., Larsen said, and reside mostly in warm climate locations such as Puerto Rico, Southern Florida and Southern Texas.

Larsen, who specializes in infectious disease epidemiology and malaria, said only climate change could lead to the viruses spreading, because it would allow the Ae. aegypti mosquitos to survive around the country.

“Anything beyond a call for more research and travel warnings would be an overreaction,” Larsen said.