How Zika Could Make Its Way North
Laboratory tests show that a cold-tolerant mosquito known as Culex quinquefasciatus can be infected with Zika virus in the laboratory. If confirmed in the field, it would be a troubling development, suggesting the virus would be more difficult to control, and might be able to spread far north of Florida and the Caribbean.
Culex mosquitoes are not currently targeted for control; the fight against Zika has focused on eradicating Aedes aegypti, an invasive mosquito found throughout tropical and subtropical regions worldwide and which is primarily blamed for the virus’s outbreak in Brazil and its spread through parts of south Florida.
At the in late September in Orlando, from Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Foundation showed that mosquitoes fed Zika-infected blood could pass on the virus in their saliva. Tong-Yan Zhao, from China’s State Key Lab of Pathogens and Biosecurity, also reported at the conference that Zika-carrying mosquitoes can transmit the virus to mice.
