Champaign County has its first confirmed case of Zika virus, Champaign-Urbana Public Health District Administrator Julie Pryde said.

Pryde said the state Department of Public Health lab confirmed positive results Friday.

She couldn’t confirm whether the results were for the female University of Illinois student said to have sought treatment at the UI McKinley Health Center after returning from a Zika virus-affected area.

The health center announced two weeks ago that there was a Zika case on campus, warning: “Because of the large number of our community who may have traveled to affected areas or are contemplating travel, it is likely that additional individuals among the (UI) community will be exposed to the virus which causes Zika infection.”

McKinley Director Dr. Robert Palinkas told The News-Gazette on Thursday that the person affected was a UI student.</s>Champaign County has its first confirmed case of Zika virus, Champaign-Urbana Public Health District Administrator Julie Pryde said.

Pryde said the state Department of Public Health lab confirmed positive results Friday.

She couldn’t confirm whether the results were for the female University of Illinois student said to have sought treatment at the UI McKinley Health Center after returning from a Zika virus-affected area.

The health center announced two weeks ago that there was a Zika case on campus, warning: “Because of the large number of our community who may have traveled to affected areas or are contemplating travel, it is likely that additional individuals among the (UI) community will be exposed to the virus which causes Zika infection.”

McKinley Director Dr. Robert Palinkas told The News-Gazette on Thursday that the person affected was a UI student.</s>S.C. County Sprays For Mosquitoes But Accidentally Takes Out Millions Of Bees

It wasn't meant for the bees.

The pesticide raining down from the sky in Dorchester County, S.C., was meant to kill mosquitoes — for the sake of safety, the county says. Mosquitoes, after all, can carry West Nile and Zika, and four cases of Zika were recently confirmed in the county.

But on Sunday morning, from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., as the county conducted aerial spraying, the bees fell by the millions.

"By Sunday afternoon," The Post and Courier newspaper reports, "thousands of bee carcasses dotted Andrew Macke's Spring House Lane property." The amateur beekeeper — also the fire captain of the town of Summerville — was at work when his wife called.

Beekeepers in Dorchester County sound downright apocalyptic when they talk about the impact of the spraying.

"We have a mass killing," Macke's wife told him.

"My bee yard looks like it's been nuked," Juanita Stanley, co-owner of Flowertown Bee Farm and Supply, told the Post and Courier.

Flowertown lost more than 2 million bees, Stanley says.

On Facebook, Flowertown posted photo after photo of piles of dead bees. The bee farm also posted images and videos of the burning of apiaries — which have to be destroyed now that they've been contaminated, the owners say.

Dorchester County says it provided sufficient notice to local beekeepers, with announcements sent to the local media on Friday morning and Saturday night.

But in a petition on Change.org seeking to call off the spraying, Dorchester County residents say the notices released Friday didn't provide any details on the type of pesticide to be used, and that requests for more information from the county weren't answered.

"This is both disturbing and frightening to many that live in the area that is to be covered," the petition reads. "There are live and privately owned beehives that are in this area and to the best of our knowledge, the chemicals to be used are toxic to honeybees."

Indeed, CNN reports that the county used a product containing naled, which is "highly toxic to bees," according to the manufacturer of the pesticide used.

The product is not supposed to be used "more than two hours after sunrise or two hours before sunset," a recommendation that Dorchester County Administrator Jason Ward says the county followed.

The county normally sprays for mosquito control by truck, not from airplanes. And it generally notifies beekeepers by phone or email — something the county says it also did in this case, CNN reports, although beekeeper Juanita Stanley says she didn't get such a message. Here's CNN:

" 'That's true when they sprayed by trucks; they told me in advance, and we talked about it so I could protect my bees,' Stanley said. 'But nobody called me about the aerial spraying; nobody told me at all.' "Stanley said she 'would have been screaming and pleading on their doorstep if they had.' " ' "Do it at night when bees are done foraging," I would have told them,' she added, breaking into tears. 'But they sprayed at 8 a.m. Sunday, and all of my bees were out, doing their work by then.' "

Dorchester County has apologized, the Post and Courier reports.

The county says on its website that no more aerial spraying is scheduled — and that if officials do spray again, they will send out notifications three to five days in advance and contact registered beekeepers by phone or email.</s>Millions of US bees die from spray to fight Zika mosquitoes

Beekeeper Juanita Stanley woke up stunned Monday morning when she realized the familiar buzz at her South Carolina apiary had gone silent.

In an effort to control the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, authorities over the weekend doused parts of the southeastern state with the controversial pesticide Naled -- a dose that proved fatal to millions of bees.

"Our family business has been destroyed by the aerial spray," Stanley said on the Facebook page of her Summerville, SC apiary, Flowertown Bee Farm and Supplies. "Help us share the story, don't let our honey girls die in vain."

Along with her plea Stanley posted photos showing the clumps of dead bees and her team burning the boxes that had housed the hives.

According to the local channel WCSC, the apiary lost 46 hives and 2.5 million bees.

Dorchester County, which manages much of the town of Summerville, ordered the August 28 aerial spraying after detecting four confirmed Zika cases in the area.

"Dorchester County is aware that some beekeepers in the area that was sprayed on Sunday lost their beehives," said County Administrator Jason Ward in a statement, urging affected beekeepers to report their losses.

The controversial pesticide Naled has been used in the United States since 1959 as a common tool for mosquito control, despite concerns about its risks for human and environmental health.

The European Union prohibited its use in 2012, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assures it is safe if sprayed sparingly.

Ward said Dorchester County does not have any aerial spraying flights planned at this time, but emphasized that "aerial spraying is being utilized to supplement our mosquito ground spray trucks and larvae control programs in targeted areas."

"Dorchester County is concerned about the safety of its citizens," he said. "This includes protecting citizens from insect bites from pests such as mosquitoes that carry viruses including West Nile and Zika."

According to the US Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) the country has registered more than 2,600 cases of Zika, most related to travel abroad.

Zika is primarily spread by the bite of an Aedes aegypti mosquito.

The virus is linked to the birth defect microcephaly, which causes newborns' heads to be abnormally small, and rare adult-onset neurological problems like Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which can result in paralysis and even death.</s>Huddled around their hives, beekeepers around the south-eastern US fear a new threat to their livelihood: a fine mist beaded with neurotoxin, sprayed from the sky by officials at war with mosquitos that carry the Zika virus.

Earlier this week, South Carolina beekeepers found millions of dead honey bees carpeting their apiaries, killed by an insecticide. Video posted by a beekeeper to Facebook showed thousands of dead insects heaped around hives, while a few survivors struggled to move the bodies of fellow bees.

“This is what’s left of Flowertown Bees,” a despondent keeper says in the video. Company co-owner Juanita Stanley told the Associated Press her farm looked “like it’s been nuked” and estimated 2.5 million bees were killed.

In another Facebook post, South Carolina hobbyist Andrew Macke wrote that he had lost “thousands upon thousands of bees” and that the spraying had devastated his business. “Have we lost our mind,” he wrote, “spraying poison from the sky?”

Around the US, bees and other pollinators contribute an estimated $29bn to farm income. Clemson University’s department of pesticide regulation is investigating the incident.

The program head, Dr Mike Weyman, said that though South Carolina has strict rules about protecting pollinators, county officials were using the neurotoxin, Naled, under a clause exempting them in a “clear and public health crisis”.

More than three dozen people have tested positive for Zika in South Carolina, Weyman said, and officials have made it a priority to prevent local transmissions through the Aedes aegypti mosquito.



“We don’t want one of those mosquitos having a blood meal on an individual we’ve already determined was positive,” Weyman said. “We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that [Zika] is up and running in Florida. If it gets in the mosquito population ... you’re playing catch-up.”

South Carolina’s protocol for Zika infections is to alert local officials of a carrier’s residence, which they “consider a ground zero”, Weyman said. Local authorities then target the local mosquitos in a 200-yard radius, in this case with spray.

Flowertown Bees was listed on local records but not in the state’s voluntary registry of pollinators, according to Weyman. “We know where the big ones are,” he said, “but as you can see this was a fairly large operation and almost right smack dab in the spray path.”

Despite the investigation into what went wrong, the killing has beekeepers worried about what might happen next.

“Everyone that I’ve spoken to has major concerns about the effect” of insecticides, said Jennifer Holmes, vice-president of the Florida State Beekeepers Association and the co-owner of a company with about 300 colonies north of West Palm Beach.

Comparing bees to cows or other pillars of agriculture, she said: “If there was a regulation that allowed some spraying that would kill half of your livestock overnight, how would recover your livelihood?”

Holmes has spent the last week working with beekeepers and state and county officials. The keepers, she said, fear “not just the immediate die-offs, but possible genetic die-offs or sterility” for bees that survive the first sprays.

“We understand the serious threat of possible disease,” she said, “but we also have to maintain our agricultural livelihood.”

A Louisiana beekeeper, who requested anonymity because of work with county officials, added another set of concerns: careless mixture and application of chemicals, mismanagement and long-term imbalance in the ecosystem.

“In order to ‘fix’ the problem,” the keeper said, “it will all have to begin with re-establishing healthy soil that will nourish a healthy plant population that will nourish healthy populations, whether it be the honeybee or a deer.

“Chemical application of any sort creates an imbalance from the ground up, even if a simple mosquito is the target.”

‘We always have the environment in mind’

Experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and independent universities say Naled is far safer than other chemicals. It breaks down rapidly and, in the very low doses at which it is prescribed, should not pose a risk to humans.

“In Louisiana, we use these products quite frequently to reduce mosquitos, but we don’t see many nontarget effects, because the doses are really small,” said Dr Kirsten Healy, a public health entomologist at Louisiana State University.

“A lot of people don’t realize that we always have the environment in mind. We try to have products that have the lowest possible impact.”

Even the mosquitos targeted “quickly bounce back”, she said. Healy recommended a multi-pronged approach: aerial and ground sprays along with removal of the trash cans, bird feeders and other containers where water pools and mosquitos breed.

Aerial sprays threaten other pollinators. Dennis Olle, director of conservation programs for the North American Butterfly Association, noted the effect of chaotic ocean winds near his office in Miami. “It’s aerial bombing without any sense of being able to lay the chemical down on the target,” he said.

Olle conceded that that he was not a scientist – he is an attorney – but described a 2015 Florida International University study that found Naled application was uneven and harmful to butterflies.

“It kills everything,” he said. “There’s no question that it is highly, highly deleterious to butterflies and other arthropods, even mammals in high enough doses.”

He agreed that door-to-door removal of breeding objects and hand spraying were effective techniques against mosquitos, but worried about repeated low doses of chemicals to both pollinators and his children.

“If they’re killing every mosquito, as they claim, everything else needs to be worried too,” he said. “That’s not rocket science, that’s common sense.”

Olle’s fears have sympathizers in Florida and Puerto Rico, where there have been, respectively, 35 and 13,791 mosquito infections of the Zika virus. Earlier this summer on Puerto Rico, doctors rallied against Naled when the CDC made a last-ditch plea to start spraying. Governor Alejandro García Padilla rejected the proposal in July, citing concerns over possible side effects on humans and other animals.

Puerto Rico was also the site of some of what limited Naled-mosquito research has been performed in the last 30 years. Dr Duane Gubler, a professor at Duke Medical School and an expert in infectious diseases, led that research and found that Naled had mixed results.

“It’s unpredictable,” Gubler said. “We did the whole city of San Juan and it appeared to be somewhat effective in some areas but not others.”

Aedes aegypti mosquitos, Gubler said, were especially difficult targets since they breed inside and under houses, in buckets, tires, puddles or any container with stagnant water.

“There’s some data from Florida that suggests it can be effective where Aedes aegypti mosquitos are primarily outdoor breeders,” he said, “but from my data, it was spotty.”

Like Healy, Gubler recommended a mix of techniques – targeting adults and larvae through habitats and sprays and a partnership between citizens and agencies. “It’s near impossible for any government agency to control all of the mosquitos,” he said.

“It’s a matter of weighing the benefits versus the risks,” he added, noting the critical place of bees, especially, in keeping crops growing.

“If you have to make a decision on whether it protects, say, your pregnant wife from being exposed versus killing a few butterflies, I suspect in most people’s minds it’s probably worth the risk.”</s>(CNN) South Carolina beekeeper Juanita Stanley has a message to mosquito control officials who she believes are overreacting to Zika: "Stop. This is crazy. It's like using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. The devastation that it has already caused is beyond comprehension. We can't live without these honeybees."

Last weekend, Stanley lost more than 3 million bees -- all 46 of her hives and her entire livelihood -- when Summerville officials decided to aerially spray a small area of the town for Zika-carrying mosquitoes.

Usually, officials spray for mosquito control by truck and at night, when bees are in their hives and beekeepers can better protect them. But this time, the county decided to spray aerially, just after sunrise on Sunday.

"There are 'no spraying' signs all over my property," Stanley said. "But my bees were poisoned from the sky."

The spraying occurred, Dorchester County Administrator Jason Ward said, because four people in the county had developed Zika while traveling to areas of the world where the virus is actively circulating. Summerville residents then expressed concern about the virus.

In fact, the only state with active mosquito transmission is Florida, and only in the Miami and St. Petersberg/Tampa areas.

So if no local mosquitoes in Summerville are carrying the Zika virus, why was it necessary to spray?

"We had historic rainfall, including a flood last October, where we've had standing water in areas where we have never had standing water," he explained. "Our winter this year was very mild, and we didn't have that real hard freeze. So the health of our citizens is of primary concern."

"Someone has a virus that they didn't get here, but what if, someday, maybe, they might?" she asked, her voice rising in outrage. "Let's just go kill everything in case someone might get it? Where is the logic in that?"

What is the official stance? The National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the National Bee Laboratory said they would not be commenting on the issue. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was more forthcoming.

"We do recommend mosquito control to be done around travel-associated cases as well as locally transmitted cases if the mosquitoes that spread Zika are in the environment," said entomologist Janet McAllister of the CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases. "We don't want the virus to take hold in the local mosquito population."

Although Aedes aegypti is the most effective at transmitting the Zika virus, another more common mosquito in the United States is also capable of spreading the disease. It's called Aedes albopictus, and it's widespread in South Carolina.

"Our recommendations take into account both species," McAllister said, "just in case the disease starts to spread."

The nation's bees have long been stressed by the public's need for pest control.

"I've seen it with West Nile virus and after hurricanes and major flooding," entomologist Jeffrey Harris said. "I always tell the beekeepers that human health is always going to trump bee health, and if there is a natural disaster that increases a dangerous mosquito population, they are going to spray."

Harris runs the Honey Bee Extension and Research Program for Mississippi State University and is active in research on bees and how to best protect them from pesticides.

"Aerial spraying is a tough one," he said. "The recommendations are difficult to follow. While maximum foraging for bees is between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., in the summertime, the bees are already out at dawn, when aerial spraying is recommended. So spraying in the morning is the worst thing they can do for bees."

Why not spray at night?

"That's not always possible," said Michael Doyle, who has run the Key West Mosquito Control District for five years. "Some districts can fly at night safely, but, for example, we cannot in Key West. We have to fly over water, and there isn't any light to guide the plane."

Doyle added that because the naled pesticide droplets are very small, there is really no way to avoid unprotected hives. The CDC's McAllister agrees.

"The mosquito control pesticides are targeted for tiny creatures," McAllister said. "They are very small droplets, about 15 to 25 microns in size, much less than the diameter of the human hair."

One of the best ways for beekeepers to help their hives during aerial spraying, Harris said, is to wet a breathable fabric and place it over the hive. It will also work when bees evacuate their hives in hot weather and form a "beard."

"Sometimes, a half of pound of bees will be hanging out together in a 'beard' outside their hives in the late afternoon, and they often stay there into the night," explained Harris. "We suggest getting wet burlap bags and hanging them over the hives so that the hive or the beard can't escape. The fabric picks up much of the pesticide and protects them."

But nothing will help if the beekeepers don't know that spraying is going to occur. That means all commercial and hobby beekeepers need to make sure they are registered with their local mosquito control districts.

"The mosquito control district needs to be good citizens of the environment and have good dialogue with local beekeepers," McAllister said, "and that communication has to be a two-way street. If they aren't registered, they can't expect mosquito control to know where their bees are so they can work with the beekeepers to protect them."

Many beekeepers aren't good at doing that, preferring to keep the locations of their hives private.

"Even professional beekeepers are very secretive about where they place their hives," McAllister said. "I don't understand it. It must be a competition thing with other beekeepers for the best flowers to make the most honey."

"It's a Catch-22," agreed Doyle. "They don't tell us where they are, but then we get blamed for killing bees."

Stanley was on her local mosquito control registry. In her case, the district didn't call her about the spraying. Local officials have apologized, but for Stanley, it was too little, too late.

"I used all of my resources to start this business, and I've lost everything," Stanley said. "You can't insure bees, and I had no backup plan. These little baby bees that I've lost, it's devastating."</s>Washington, DC - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has awarded $2.4 million to Chicago, Houston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles County to establish, enhance, and maintain information-gathering systems to rapidly detect microcephaly–a serious birth defect of the brain–and other adverse outcomes linked to Zika virus infection.

This funding is in addition to the $16.4 million recently awarded to states and territories for surveillance of microcephaly and other adverse outcomes and will enable these local areas to participate in these important activities in coordination with state efforts. The funds will allow these local areas to:
• Enhance information-gathering to carry out strategies for real-time, population-based monitoring for microcephaly and other birth defects caused by Zika virus
• Provide referral of infants and families to health and social resources
• Expand access to examination of health and monitoring of developmental outcomes of children born to women with positive or inconclusive Zika virus test results

As of August 26, CDC had obligated more than $193 million of the repurposed funds available for Zika preparedness, including over $110 million to support state, territorial, and local jurisdictions fight Zika. As of August 26, HHS has obligated $264 million of the $374 million redirected for the domestic Zika response.

Surveillance and referral to services for infants with microcephaly or other adverse outcomes linked with the Zika virus in local areas will be supported through three complementary approaches:
• The $16.4 million award in early August to states and territories for the surveillance of microcephaly and other adverse outcomes
• The $2.4 million award announced today, which will enable highly populated jurisdictions to participate in surveillance of microcephaly and other adverse outcomes in coordination with state efforts
• CDC also recently awarded $5.5 million to support the expansion of the public health emergency response capacity at the local level to report on Zika-exposed pregnant women, their developing fetuses, pregnancy outcomes and live-born infants. Information on how to apply for support will be made available to local health departments.

Zika virus spreads to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito (specifically, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus). Zika infection can also be spread by infected men and women to their sex partners. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika and many people infected with Zika have no symptoms. Of those who do have symptoms, the most common are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (red eyes). Zika infection during pregnancy can cause microcephaly and other severe brain abnormalities in the developing fetus.

CDC encourages everyone, especially pregnant women and women planning to become pregnant, to protect themselves from mosquito bites to avoid possible Zika virus infection.</s>Following a hotly contested statewide referendum, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley sent shock waves through international economies when she announced that South Carolina citizens, by a margin of over eighty-six percent, had voted to secede from the European Union.

Explained Governor Haley, "By this referendum, the citizens of South Carolina have made clear their refusal to continue to submit to the whims of a European order. South Carolina is not a colony. This decision empowers us to make the decisions that are best for us, rather than being constrained by a league of foreign nations - whose priorities, it's become quite clear, differ greatly from our own."

One particular area of conflict between South Carolina and the EU, noted Governor Haley, is the EU's opposition to capital punishment. The death penalty is still in effect in South Carolina.

"Frankly," stated Governor Haley, "we here in Dixie consider the death penalty part of our Second Amendment right to bear arms. Of course, in this case, our 'arm' happens to be a hypodermic needle or an electric chair. But the principle's the same."

For that reason, Haley contended, the EU's prohibition on capital punishment is actually unconstitutional. "And we're not going to let our fundamental rights be trampled on by the EU - or anyone."

Haley added that South Carolinians also felt extremely uncomfortable with the EU's pro-choice stance on abortion.

"The EU evidently values the lives of child molesters and murderers more than they do the lives of innocent unborn children," she remarked dryly. "In South Carolina, on the other hand, we do oppose the death penalty - for fetuses."

Many economists and political commentators have asked the obvious question...why secede from the EU now?

As Governor Haley explained, "We in the Global South have a responsibility to stand up against injustice, and particularly injustice against ourselves. When we heard about the brave folks in England who finally stood up and said they'd had enough of the EU, it got us scratching our heads. And we realized, you know what? So have we!"

Many have pointed out a key difference between Brexit and South Carolina's EU secession, which some have dubbed "Dixit" - or, less flatteringly, "Hixit": unlike England, South Carolina is not, and never has been, a member of the European Union.

"Exactly," Governor Haley agreed. "We may have agreed to stop flying the rebel flag in South Carolina, but it still flies in our hearts. We've never considered ourselves part of the Union - European or otherwise. This recent referendum merely formalizes that position."</s>WASHINGTON D.C.: According to a new study many Asian countries such as Pakistan, India, China, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh are expected to be at great risk of Zika outbreak.

These countries receive a combination of high travel volumes from Zika-affected areas, have mosquitoes capable of transmitting the virus, suitable climatic conditions, large populations and/or limited health resources, reveals the study published online in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.

Among these countries, India, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan and Bangladesh might be most vulnerable because of their limited per capita health resources. “An estimated 2.6 billion people live in areas where the local mosquito species and suitable climatic conditions mean that local Zika virus transmission is theoretically possible. However, there are still many unknown things about the virus and how it spreads. The impact on populations will also depend heavily on the country’s ability to diagnose and respond to a possible outbreak,” said author Dr Kamran Khan, St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Canada.

In the study, the research team, which included scientists from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Oxford University (UK) and the University of Toronto (Canada) established the ecological niche for Zika virus in the Americas.

At the time of the analysis, local transmission of Zika virus had been confirmed in 40 countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Over 3 million bees die in South Carolina after being exposed to pesticides intended for mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus.