Despite Sunday's rainfall, the dry season continues...though the rainy season is just a month or so away and that means the Zika virus will be returning.
We talked with Palm Beach County Health Department spokesman Tim O'Connor this week.
"I was just with mosquito control people this morning. Preparations are underway and they said we had a deluge on Sunday but they don't think that's going to have much of an affect, obviously. Down the road, we know it's coming...the increase in the mosquito population."
He says mosquito control officials learned a lot of lessons last year that will come in handy.
"Part of this whole thing is the communication and I think we did a really good job here in Palm Beach County last summer."
O'Connor says epidemiologists at the Department of Health were able to identify Zika cases brought into our area from outside the country, even when patients weren't showing symptoms of the virus. That information was shared with doctors and mosquito control.
He says that while our area was impacted last year, it wasn't as bad as Miami and other areas of the state and there's no reason to believe things will be any worse this summer.
"We're optimistic that we'll do our due diligence, if you will, and working with all of our partners and we can again minimize the impact of this in Palm Beach County."
Right now in the Keys, thousands of mosquitoes infected with a bacteria are being released for a trial that will last 3 months. Scientists say the modified male bugs were manually infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, so that when they breed with the female, the eggs don't hatch.
Zika is linked to birth defects when pregnant women are infected. It can also be transmitted through sex.
We'll hear more from O'Connor on Thursday's Morning Rush and at the Local News Wire. He'll tell us if we should be concerned that a second breed of mosquito has been determined to carry the Zika virus.
Photo: AFP