Zika: Aerial spraying of insecticide Naled over Miami set to resume despite objections of nervous residents

Aa Zika advisory is lifted for nearby Wynwood, the focus shifts to South Beach

A plane trails a Zika public health warning down the beach this week (David Usborne)

Authorities in Florida are to press ahead with another round of aerial spraying of the South Beach neighbourhood of Miami this weekend over the objections of some nervous residents.

The use of small aircraft to shower the famous Art Deco district, a top tourist destination, with the insecticide Naled, which has been banned in the European Union since 2012, is being defended by county and state officials as vital in the war against the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

Weather permitting, the planes will take to the skies at 6am on Saturday and the spraying over a 4.5 square mile area, encompassing many of the most visited sections of South Beach including the seafront and its parade of hotels, will last about 30 minutes.

A 46 day-old advisory cautioning pregnant women to avoid the nearby Wynwood district of Miami, the first part of the city to see cases of locally-transmitted Zika back in mid-August, was lifted on Monday, after several weeks with no new cases being reported there.

Officials have attributed that success to aggressive aerial spraying. Zika is known to cause deformities in unborn children, leading to reduced head size known as microcephaly.

But if Wynwood has been cleared, the focus has now shifted decidedly to South Beach. Warnings to residents and tourists to cover up and use insecticide are everywhere, including on every bus stop and even on banners trailed by planes flying up and down the beach itself.

Public health warnings adorn every bus stop (David Usborne)

Protesters besieged a meeting of the Miami City Council earlier this month demanding a moratorium on the use of Naled. Earlier this summer the Governor of Puerto Rico, which is facing a far more widespread Zika crisis, refused to deploy a large shipment of Naled from the US federal government saying he was uncertain of the arguments that it was safe.

Visiting from Newcastle, Deborah McDonald, said she never thought twice about going ahead with a holiday in Florida with her now fiance Craig Scott - he proposed in South Beach also via a plane-trailed banner in the sky - even though she had read about Zika in the UK press.

“We know about it, of course. You've got the signs everywhere, and the planes with the warnings. If I’d been pregnant, that would have been different,” she said. Mr Scott noted that in Orlando they were given free insecticide to apply in all the theme parks. The visitor’s welcome centre on Ocean Drive in South Beach also gives away aerosols of ‘Off’.

Miami-Dade County remains the only place in the United States where mosquitoes are actively spreading the virus. So far, 30 infections not acquired because of travel overseas have been linked to Wynwood and an additional 40 to South Beach.

Alexandria Quintas, who manages a South Beach shop selling marijuana health products, is among those wishing the Naled spraying would stop. She recalled being at a local night club, Trade, last weekend and her boyfriend calling and telling her to leave well before her usual 5 am because he didn’t want her being out while the spraying was happening.

“It’s a bad idea because what is that going to help?” she said, worrying out loud that the weekend spraying schedule means night-clubbers might again be on the streets and at risk of being exposed to the Naled coming from the sky.

“In the meantime they are hurting all these animals. They are hurting everything around - the plants, the bees, they are all dying. You see like dead dead bees on the floor. They are killing all these things just because of Zika.”

But in Wynood, a district distinguished by art galleries and contemporary murals painted on the sides of buildings, Zak Stern, 32, who owns a popular kosher bakery called Zak the Baker, marked the lifting of the local Zika advisory with lunch on the house for pregnant patrons.

The Wynwood district was cleared of Zika this week (David Usborne)

“We missed the pregnant ladies, they are a big part of the whole picture of our place - that sort of wholesomeness they bring,” Mr Stern, who in fact goes by Zak the Baker, said, explaining his relief that the Zika alert for Wynwood was finally over. He estimates that for that period his revenue was down about 25 per cent. For some other business around him it was much worse.

“If you draw a red line around it and say don't go to that neighbourhood, it scares the shit out of people,” he offered. As for the Naled spraying, he said he wasn’t going to second-guess it.

“If a bunch of very learned scientists and physicians say the dose is safe, am I, a baker, going to say that they are wrong? I have to trust somebody in the world. And look if they hadn’t done it, we would equally be complaining now that they didn’t do enough.”

Certainly, the absence of new infections in Wynwood has allowed the authorities to claim vindication for the use of Naled. “The message with Wynwood is it was a huge success,“ said Dr. Lyle Petersen of the Centers for Disease Control. ”This outbreak would have kept going without the aerial spraying.”

That was echoed by Governor Rick Scott. “We're doing everything we can do to educate the public and have the same success in Miami Beach as we have in Wynwood,“ he said.

(Reuters)

Aside from the Naled spraying, prevention teams head out each early morning to fog areas where mosquitoes may lurk. Areas of sitting water have been targeted. Residents in South Beach have also been told to rip out a particular species of decorative garden plant that holds water in cylindrical leaf formations or face a fine.

In the meantime, free testing for pregnant women in the affected area is on offer, but there have been widespread complaints that getting the results back has sometimes taken weeks, leaving women in limbo unsure if they are infected or not. That has also put state and county officials on the defensive.

“Florida is the first and only state to offer such extensive resources to pregnant women and we are constantly working to improve our process,” the Florida Department of Health said in a statement.

Adding to the pressure is the approach of the main winter tourist season of which an early highlight is the Art Basel international art fair in early December.

For gallerists like Francois Banos, who specialises in works by Peter Tunney, the best hope is that Zika will be brought under control quickly. His gallery, The Peter Tunney Experience, is in Wynwood and foot traffic was definitely down while the Zika advisory was in effect, he reported, but the good news was that it happened in late summer which is low season anyway.

“Art Basel is so far away, I don’t think we will face any issues in two months,” he offered. All of South Florida will be hoping his optimism is not misplaced.