9 Investigates mosquito testing in Carolinas to fight Zika

Health officials in Florida are looking at the first possible case of Zika being spread by mosquitoes in the U.S.

Channel 9 reporter Dave Faherty looked at what’s being done in Charlotte and across the Carolinas to monitor the serious virus.

A plastic cup doesn’t look like much, but it is one of Charlotte’s first line of defense against the Zika virus.

"Mosquitoes come and they lay their eggs on the edge of the cup,” said environmental health expert James Ericson.

For three months, Mecklenburg County and 15 others statewide have been collecting thousands of mosquito eggs and larva trying to identify what kind of mosquitoes breed here.

They want to know if the aedis aegypti mosquito, which can transmit Zika, is breeding in North Carolina.

"The big scare has been the aedis aegypti that is known to carry the Zika virus. We haven't had that in this county for many many years. Just making sure we don't have it currently,” said environmental expert Timothy Dutcher.

So far, that particular mosquito hasn't been found, but researchers at East Carolina University discovered a common type of mosquito in North Carolina known as the Asian tiger. It did get Zika 100 percent of the time after being fed infectious blood.

"We found their natural habitat,” Hartsville Mosquito Control’s Arnold Floyd said.

In South Carolina, city workers in Hartsville are trapping mosquitoes as part of a South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control program to test for several diseases including Zika.

So far, they haven't found the virus but Stephen Wild, who helps collect the mosquitoes, believes the work is important for his family's safety and others.

"I have a wife and daughter and wouldn't want the disease to affect my family,” Wild said.

The mosquitoes collected there are frozen and then sent to a lab for testing.

The Zika virus can cause devastating birth defects with newborns of infected mothers having unusually small heads and brain damage.

In North Carolina and South Carolina, dozens of people became infected by the virus while traveling abroad, but so far there have been no documented cases of transmission by mosquitoes here.

Channel 9 asked state health officials why North Carolina isn't testing mosquitoes for the virus like South Carolina is.

"Given the resources that we have and the understanding we have and guidance from the CDC, it's probably perhaps not the best use of funding,” North Carolina health veterinarian Dr. Carl Williams said.

State health workers said part of the reason centers on how Zika is spread. In order to find the virus in a mosquito in North Carolina, someone traveling abroad would have to be first bitten by an infected mosquito there, come back home and within a few days be bitten by a mosquito here.

But after months of collecting mosquitoes, no one in North Carolina has found the type most likely to carry the disease.

Tests done on the more common tiger mosquito show it can only transmit the virus between 10 to 15 percent of the time.

For now, the best advice is to prevent mosquitoes from breeding near you.

"The most important thing with the Zika virus is taking care of your own space,” Dutcher said.

One person in York County contracted the Zika virus while traveling abroad.

South Carolina's Health Department confirmed the case earlier this month.

York County officials sprayed for mosquitoes in Tega Cay as a precaution.

For more information on Zika virus in North Carolina, click here.

Cox Media Group