Fauci: ‘We Already Have Zika in the United States But It Is Travel Related’

FAUCI: "Well, we certainly have a significant number of travel related cases right now in the continental United States, well over 500. And we have several hundred what we call locally transmitted cases in the Caribbean, in the sense of American territories, particularly Puerto Rico. So we already have Zika in the United States. But it is travel related. The concern is that we will have local transmission; in other words, people who get infected in the United States, get bitten by a mosquito, but who have never left the continental United States. We fully expect that that will happen as we get to the more robust mosquito season in the next month or so. The question is we need to be prepared for that and make sure that those local outbreaks don’t become sustained and don’t become disseminated. That’s the reason why we need to have a very, very forceful preparation right now before that happens."