HOUSTON—The poorest parts of Houston remind Dr. Peter Hotez of some of the neighborhoods in Latin America hardest hit by Zika.
Broken window screens. Limited air conditioning. Trash piles that seem to re-appear even after they’re cleaned up.
On a hot, humid day this month, Hotez pointed at one pile that included old tires and a smashed-in television with water pooling inside. It was a textbook habitat for the mosquitoes that carry and transmit the Zika virus, and one example of the challenge facing public health officials.
“I’m showing you Zika heaven,” said Hotez, the tropical medicine dean at Baylor College of Medicine.
Hotez and other tropical disease specialists are most concerned about impoverished urban areas and along the Gulf Coast, where the numbers of the mosquito that spreads Zika are expected to spike. Texas already has dealt with dengue fever, transmitted by the same mosquito.
Zika causes only a mild and brief illness, at worst, in most people. But it can cause fetal death and severe brain defects in the children of women infected during pregnancy.
So far, Texas officials have reported 48 people infected with Zika, all associated with travel. In one case, the virus was sexually transmitted by someone who had been infected abroad.
Public health officials have spent months preparing for what they are certain will be at least some locally transmitted cases. “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” said Dr. Umair Shah, the executive director of the Harris County public health department.
Florida and other states in the South where the Aedes aegypti mosquito is present also are taking steps to prepare. In Florida, for example, Gov. Rick Scott used his emergency powers last week to authorize spending up to $26.2 million for Zika.
