Florida health officials have trapped mosquitoes in an area of Miami-Dade County and are testing them for Zika to confirm whether a woman with the virus could be the first person infected directly by a mosquito bite in the continental United States.

Florida's Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not immediately respond to questions about their investigation, but http://medicalxpress.com/tags/health+officials/ - health officials said the case had no apparent connection to travel outside the country.

The patient is a woman who lives in Miami-Dade County, according to a health official familiar with the case who wasn't authorized to reveal details beyond the statements of the agencies involved, and thus spoke on condition of anonymity.

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"We are in an active investigation stage, not only in Miami but also in Broward," she says. Her message for the media and the public? "Just to have patience."

http://www.floridahealth.gov/ - Florida's Department of Health is working with the http://www.cdc.gov/ - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to rule out other ways the two individuals could have contracted Zika, such as through travel or sexual transmission. The department is also trapping mosquitoes and testing them for the Zika virus. So far, none have come back positive. Miami took similar measures in 2010 when the city saw a number of http://www.cdc.gov/dengue/index.html - dengue cases. Because it can cause birth defects including http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/microcephaly/microcephaly.htm - microcephaly , Zika is even more worrying.

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