Texas officials report travel-related Zika case — from Miami

A Texan who recently traveled to a part of Miami with local Zika transmission has tested positive for the virus, marking the first instance in which a traveler likely picked up the mosquito-borne virus in another U.S. state.

Health officials said they looked at travel dates, symptoms and the situation in southern Florida to reach their conclusion. It is the first Zika cases in El Paso County, which has no other evidence of the virus or that it is spreading by mosquito bite there.

Texas has recorded 108 cases tied to travel, though each of those were linked to Zika-affected area outside of the continental U.S.

So far, the Florida Department of Health has confirmed 30 cases of locally acquired Zika virus.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, said he is calling in additional commercial pest control companies to help the state knock out mosquitoes in a square-mile area north of downtown Miami.

Officials believe active transmission is only occurring in that area, though it is looking into suspected transmission in three other spots in Miami-Dade County and one in Palm Beach County to see whether it is spreading on its own there.

Miami is the only place on the U.S. mainland with cases linked to bug bites, though other states along the Gulf of Mexico have feared local transmission, too, because they are home to Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that ferry the disease.

However, it said Texans who’ve traveled to Zika-affected areas should use insect repellent, whenever they go outside, for at least three weeks after they return.

Last week, officials said an infant who recently died in Harris County, Texas, had been born with an abnormally small head, a condition known as microcephaly, after the mother contracted Zika while traveling in Latin American during her pregnancy.