LITTLE ROCK, Ark- Medical detectives are trying to figure out what caused a caregiver in Utah to contract the Zika virus from a patient. They’re now looking into whether more needs to be done to protect health care workers or if it was just an extremely unusual circumstance.
The case happened in a part of the country where they don’t have the type of mosquitoes that carry the virus.
Arkansas does have the type of mosquitoes that carry Zika, but right now the insects aren’t infected and transmitting the disease.
The Arkansas Department of Health is monitoring mosquitoes aggressively to make sure they are not transmitting the virus.
State epidemiologist, Dr. Dirk Haselow says the dept. of health has begun testing in the last few months for the virus through blood and urine samples, recently including testing for antibodies to the virus.
