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A Potential High Tech Solution to Zika

April 7th, 2016 by Mike Vasilinda

Standing water from tornadoes and excessive rain across the state has the potential for breeding swarms of mosquitos. Four Florida counties, including Miami-Dade, Lee, Hillsborough and Santa Rosa remain under a state of emergency for the Zika Virus. And as Mike Vasilinda tells us, THE CEO of a British Company is in the State Capitol talking with officials and business leaders about a potential high tech solution.

British researchers say they have a high tech solution to stop the Zika virus and they want to try it in Florida. Oxitec is a spin off company from Oxford University. It began genetically modifying mosquitos in 2002. CEO hadyn Parry says it’s plan has gotten a thumbs up from the World Health Organization.

“Male mosquitos can not transmit the disease, so we release these males and they been genetically engineered, so when they actually mate with a wild female, all of the off spring are going to die” says Parry.

The Food and drug administration must sign off on the plan. On Thursday it gave Floridians until the middle of May to comment.

The Department of Healths daily Zika update lists 82 cases in 15 Florida counties. It does not list the home counties of 5 pregnant women.

So far all of the active cases in Florida are the result of someone traveling from another country, not from being bitten here.

But that could change if one of those infected is bitten by the mosquito that carries Zika. Oxitec has successfully used the modified mosquitos to reduce dengue fever in at least three counties.

“In all our trials in different countries, we’ve reduced the population of mosquitos by up to 90 percent, by over ninety percent, actually in every single case” says the Oxitac CEO Parry.

The First test site in Florida would be in the Florida Keys. If successful, a second round of FDA approval would be needed to expand to other ares of the state..

The Florida Department of Health declined to comment about the project since it has yet to be approved. Today’s Zika update shows no new cases since yesterday. Approval of the plan could still take months if not more than a year. if at all.

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