MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – The Miami-Dade mosquito control team is continuing to spray larvicide in areas where there is standing water, attempting to eliminate mosquitoes before they reach adulthood and are capable of transmitting the Zika virus.
The mosquito control team focused Wednesday on storm drains in Miami Beach, near the area where several people are believed to have contracted the Zika virus.
Officials said mosquitoes are known to breed in storm drains, and the tropical wave in the Atlantic Ocean will likely bring more standing water to the area.
"That will unfortunately mean more places, more containers that could be holding water, so we plead with our residents to eliminate after the rains, eliminate any standing water in their yards," Francisco Calderon, with Miami-Dade Waste Management, said. "It's something that should be done once a week because the mosquito life cycle from an egg to an adult takes about a week."
Meanwhile, foot traffic in Wynwood has dropped amid fears among customers who are fearful of getting the mosquito-borne virus, but business is slowly picking up.
Joseph Furst, head of the Wynwood Business Improvement District is happy about the progress, but told a group of property and business owners that the governor's office hit them with a setback Tuesday, when he announced four new Zika cases in Wynwood, only to have health officials clear up his statement.
"We need to clarify, you do not have four new cases in the Wynwood area. These were identified in July, so these were in the pipeline," Dr. Lillian Rivera, from the Florida Department of Health in Miami-Dade County, said.
Furst said he is "quite dissatisfied with the messages coming out of the governor's office."
The Florida Department of Health announced Wednesday that there were 15 new travel-related cases in the state, including two in Broward County.
There is also one new non-travel-related case in Palm Beach County.
Health officials have been going door to door to warn people in the area and said "mosquito abatement and reduction activities" are taking place in the locations being investigated.
Health officials still believe that people are locally contracting the Zika virus in small areas of Wynwood and Miami Beach.
