I Tried a Tool for Girls Who Hate Washing Their Hair and Here are My Results

I don’t wash my hair every day. In fact, I err more on the side of sudsing up only once or twice a week at most. Why? Because my hair is long. And I mean super long. Long enough that when I get my hair blown out, the stylist always comments on how they’ve gotten their workout for the day. Now can you see while I rarely wash it?

Enter the PonyDry ($20; ponydry.com). The product claims to allow you to wash only your roots, leaving the rest of your hair untouched. With the promise of “letting you shower like you have short hair” and my own dream of cutting down on drying and styling time, I had to give it a try.

The process

Before washing my hair with the PonyDry. (Photo: Lisa DeSantis)

The PonyDry’s package has six images on the back to show you exactly what to do. First, I pulled my hair back into a ponytail with an elastic and pushed it through the PonyDry’s nylon pouch. I quickly realized that I had to twist the length of my hair for it to fit without stray pieces falling out. That being said, it might be easier for women with super curly or thick hair to braid it first so that it will take up less space and make the task easier.

RELATED: 10 Reasons to Love Dry Shampoo

PonyDry prep, step 1. (Photo: Lisa DeSantis)

Next, I pulled the drawstring of the pouch at the base of my ponytail and wrapped it around into a bun. The key here: make sure there’s airtight seal before entering the shower.

The last step before hopping into the shower. (Photo: Lisa DeSantis)

I was skeptical about being able to rub the shampoo into my roots, but that ended up being a nonissue. It was the rinsing part that turned out to be problematic. I didn’t want to fully submerge my PonyDry bun under the shower stream or force soapy bubbles under the closure, so when I stood under the water to rinse, my face and eyes became coated in shampoo—not ideal. I stepped out of the shower and wrapped my bun (still sporting the PonyDry) in a towel and proceeded to blow-dry the six inches around my head from my roots to the base of my pony. To the touch, the outside of the PonyDry was damp, but I hoped that my strands underneath had managed to stay Sahara-level dry.

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Post-shower, with wet roots (but, hopefully, a dry ponytail). (Photo: Lisa DeSantis)

The takeaway

About 15 minutes later, I unwrapped the towel, followed by the PonyDry. While my hair wasn’t 100% dry, it was less wet than I expected. It took only 5-ish minutes more for my hair to be completely dry with a little help of my blow-dryer, and I was pleased with the results. My roots were squeaky clean and had some extra volume that is usually long gone by the fourth or fifth day after a wash.

Post-PonyDry, with squeaky-clean roots. (Photo: Lisa DeSantis)

I think the PonyDry would be a game changer for women with superfine hair who typically wash their hair daily. Not only is that practice bad for the health of your tresses, it’s also time consuming. Personally, I see myself using PonyDry in the future if I’m in a pinch—let’s say I wake up too late to fully wash my hair or need a quick fix after a gym sesh when my roots are too sweaty to be seen in public—but I don’t see myself kissing goodbye my beloved dry shampoo just yet.

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The Best Short Cut for Your Face Shape and Hair Texture

You’ve Probably Never Used Your Flat Iron Like This Before

Photo: YouTube

Once you introduce a flat iron into your hair repertoire it quickly becomes your daily go-to tool. But Nicci Welsh, a genius hairstylist out of Denmark, released a tutorial that’s going to make you look at your iron in a whole new way. Welsh is making what she calls “Scandi Waves” happen and they’re gorgeous. Think soft, natural waves—you know, the kind that you’re always trying to achieve with varying results.

RELATED: Check Out This Model DIY Coloring Her Hair Pink

So what’s her magic trick? Welsh forms sections of her locks into S shapes, then taps her flat iron over the S to provide the heat to set it. Next, she alternates her S shapes all the way down the length of her stands.

RELATED: Glow-in-the-Dark Hair Is 2016’s Newest Trend

It’s pretty awesome and certainly a technique we’ve never seen before. We can’t wait to give it a try.

This article originally appeared on MIMIchatter.com.

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A Blood Test May Soon Tell If You Really Need Antibiotics

Photo: Getty Images

As good as doctors are at diagnosing what ails you, they’re apparently not great at figuring out which bugs are behind our most common infections. Doctors prescribe antibiotics for nearly 75% of people with coughs, sneezes and runny noses from respiratory infections. But while antibiotics are modern medicine’s strongest weapon against bacteria, most people’s infections—including the flu and common cold—are caused by viruses. And antibiotics aren’t effective against that group of bugs.

There are tests to distinguish between bacteria and viruses, but they require growing the microbes in a culture dish, which could take from one to three days. That’s not especially helpful for people looking for immediate relief at their doctor’s office or emergency room.

RELATED: Newly Discovered Bacteria Can Resist All Antibiotics

Dr. Ephraim Tsalik, assistant professor of medicine at Duke University and Durham Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, and his colleagues may have come up with a potential solution to that problem. They describe inScience Translational Medicine a blood test that could take a few drops of blood and within an hour let the doctor know whether he’s dealing with a bacterial or viral infection, and whether antibiotics are in order.

The test, which is still in the early development stages, flips bacteria and virus testing on its head. Instead of searching for hallmark signs of specific bugs, it scans the infected person’s genetic reaction to the microbe. It takes advantage of the fact that our bodies react differently to bacteria and viruses by activating different genes that are part of the immune system.

RELATED: There’s Yet Another Downside To Overusing Antibiotics

“Considering the huge vacuum and the void in helping doctors make decisions about antibiotic use, just about any kind of test is an improvement over what’s currently available,” says Tsalik.

Having such a test isn’t just a boon for patients. Currently, overuse and inappropriate use of antibiotics to treat viral infections like the flu are contributing to a massive problem of antibiotic resistance. There are now strains of bacteria that are resistant to all of the existing antibiotics used to treat them; the drugs are useless against these microbes, and many of these strains are well-entrenched in hospitals. Antibiotics are also linked to other health conditions, including diabetes, obesity, and other chronic illnesses. Antibiotics used in agriculture, to boost weight in animals such as chicken and cattle, are also generating super-strains of bacteria that could infect people as well.

RELATED: New Report Says FDA Allowed ‘High Risk’ Antibiotics to Be Used on Farm Animals

Cutting back on unnecessary and inappropriate use of the drugs is a priority for many health organizations and professionals, including the World Health Organization, and prompted President Obama’s administration to release a National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. Tsalik says that his gene-based approach to distinguish between bacterial and viral infections could help to limit such misuse of antibiotics. Not only can the test distinguish between responses to bacterial and viral infections, but it can also determine when a person’s immune response, which can sometimes include inflammation, fever, and other symptoms that are shared with infections, aren’t due to infections at all but are caused by allergies or other conditions such as emphysema.

RELATED: DIY Drugs: Antibiotics Could Soon Be Made Out of Your Own Bacteria

Tsalik also points out that current tests for specific microbes like influenza or strep aren’t always helpful, since many people may normally harbor strep, for instance, but the strep bacteria may not be making them sick. Their symptoms may be caused by another bacteria or virus, but testing positive for strep may prompt the doctor to automatically prescribe an antibiotic. While other blood tests are also mining the body’s immune response, Tsalik says that they detect for the presence of these bugs. His test provides an advantage in being able to pinpoint which bug is actually causing the illness and prompting an immune reaction to fight the infection.

Ultimately, that will help doctors figure out in real time what’s actually responsible for a person’s symptoms, and better match them to the right treatment for that infection. With the blood test, Tsalik hopes that may be only a few years away. For now, the test takes up to 10 hours, but he’s confident that time can be shortened to less than an hour so the test can become a more routine part of health care. “What we’re reporting now is by no means the end of the story,” he says. “We are working diligently to translate the signatures we found to make them available in an hour or less using a simple approach that can be done at the patient’s bedside or in an office-based lab.”

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Frail Seniors Face Increased Death Risk After Surgery, Study Suggests

THURSDAY, Jan. 21, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Physical frailty among older people who have elective surgery is linked to a greater risk of death one year later, a new study suggests.

Canadian researchers found the one-year death rate for frail older patients having certain surgeries was at least one death for every five people. To make informed treatment decision, doctors, patients and their families should be aware of this heightened risk, the team advised.

“While the choice to proceed with an elective surgery must be weighed on a case-by-case basis, our findings support the need for thorough considerations of risk vs. benefit and the overall goals of care in frail patients considering major surgery,” study leader Dr. Daniel McIsaac, of the University of Ottawa in Ontario, and colleagues wrote.

“Our findings suggest specific areas of focus for clinical and research efforts aimed at improving the care and outcomes of frail elderly surgical patients,” the researchers said.

Although the study found a link between frailty and the risk of death, it’s important to note that the study could not show a cause-and-effect relationship.

The researchers assessed the physical frailty of more than 200,000 people who were aged 65 and older. The average age was 77. They all underwent elective major non-cardiac surgery, such as large bowel surgery, joint replacement and liver resection. Three percent were considered frail, according to the researchers.

Within a year after surgery, 14 percent of the frail patients died. In contrast, only 5 percent of those who weren’t thought to be frail died during this postoperative time period. The risk for death one year after major surgery remained significantly higher for frail patients, even after the researchers took other factors into account, such as the patients’ age, gender and income.

Variables that affected a frail surgical patient’s risk of death included time since surgery, age and the type of surgery. The risk of dying was highest earliest in the postoperative period for frail patients, the study found. Younger frail patients were also more at risk, as were those who had joint replacement surgery, the study revealed.

The study was published online Jan. 20 in the journal JAMA Surgery.

“With this rigorous population-based, retrospective cohort study of surgical patients in Ontario, Canada, McIsaac and colleagues add to the growing literature demonstrating markedly increased risks frailty imposes on surgical populations,” Dr. Jason Johanning and his colleagues, from the Nebraska Western Iowa VA Medical Center in Omaha, wrote in an accompanying editorial.

“Regardless of how frailty is measured, it still paints a picture of the same elephant: dramatically increased risks for postoperative mortality and morbidity. The elephant is now in our examination room and we, as surgeons, must address the optimal goals of care and honor patients’ preferences,” they wrote.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging provides more information for older people considering surgery.

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Americans 100 and Older Are Living Even Longer Now

THURSDAY, Jan. 21, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The more than 72,000 Americans who have celebrated 100 birthdays or more are now surviving longer, a new federal report shows.

Although death rates for centenarians were on the rise between 2000 and 2008, that has since changed, the study found.

According to researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, death rates for the oldest Americans charted a steady decline between 2008 and 2014. This trend held for both genders and across races and ethnicities, the data showed.

The leading causes of death for people living to be 100 have also shifted somewhat over the last decade. According to the CDC analysis, heart disease, stroke, flu/pneumonia, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease were the top five leading causes of death for the oldest old in 2000.

However, by 2014, “heart disease was still the leading cause of death, but Alzheimer’s disease became the second leading cause, followed by stroke, cancer, and influenza and pneumonia,” wrote study author Dr. Jiaquan Xu, of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

In fact, “the percentage of total deaths from Alzheimer’s disease [for centenarians] increased 124 percent between 2000 and 2014,” he added.

In sheer numbers, the “100-plus” club is a growing demographic in the United States. Xu noted that 50,281 Americans were aged 100 or older in 2000, but by 2014 that number had jumped by almost 44 percent, to 72,197.

Women still comprise about four-fifths of centenarians, the CDC said.

One expert in geriatric care said there are many factors that have come together to help more and more Americans celebrate three-digit birthdays.

“In the 19th century there were public health efforts of clean water and sanitation and vaccination science,” explained Dr. Maria Torroella Carney, chief of geriatric and palliative medicine at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

Then, “in the new millennium, continued vaccination development, health promotion activities, injury prevention — such as wearing seatbelts and helmets — have further contributed to increased longevity and life expectancy,” she said. More people are also avoiding or quitting smoking, and the air Americans breathe has gotten cleaner, Carney added.

Increased access to health care and preventive health services, “so people can prevent diseases such as stroke, diabetes, cancers,” has also boosted lifespans, she said.

Another expert believes that health professionals are now better trained in caring for the very old.

“One way we’ve been successful in improving care for patients who are very advanced in age is that we’ve infused geriatric education throughout more schools that train health care professionals,” said Dr. Heather Whitson, a member of The American Geriatric Society.

“There are still many gaps in our knowledge and limited resources, but we have made critical strides” in caring for the elderly, said Whitson, who is also a senior fellow at the Duke University Aging Center in Durham, N.C.

However, as the length of the average American lifespan increases, Carney worries about the quality of life for the very old.

“While Americans may be living longer, are they living well?,” she said. “Are individuals functional, communicative, or are they suffering? Are they living alone or with others in their own homes or in nursing homes? Are end-of-life decisions being made and wishes being carried out? Are these elders dying in their homes or in hospitals?”

“These are the questions that need to be addressed,” Carney said. “Americans are living longer than ever before. Let’s now look to promote how this longer life is lived.”

More information

Find out more about centenarians at Boston University School of Medicine.

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Computer-Based Test Aims to Predict Dementia Risk

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 21, 2016 (HealthDay News) — A new computer-based test might be able to predict a person’s risk for dementia, just by analyzing the information family doctors gather during routine visits, a new study from Britain suggests.

Researchers from University College London have developed an algorithm that uses medical data to predict a five-year risk of dementia, according to a report Jan. 21 in the journal BioMed Central.

The algorithm assesses factors like age, sex, social interaction, smoking, body-mass index, alcohol use, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, irregular heartbeat (atrial fibrillation), aspirin use and depression, the study authors said.

“We chose the particular factors as other research has shown in some people that they [risk factors] can be linked to an increased risk of dementia,” said Kate Walters, director of the Centre for Ageing and Population Studies at University College London. “We have written a simple program to calculate the score.”

The Dementia Risk Score proved accurate when researchers used it to assess the records of more than 226,000 patients ages 60 to 79, Walters said.

But, it was not accurate for judging dementia risk at age 80 or beyond, because by that age the risk of dementia is elevated across the board, she said.

“We therefore would not recommend it for people aged 80 years or more, but it is potentially useful for people aged 60 to 79 years,” Walters said.

The test could ease the minds of people at very low risk for dementia, Walters said, and provide advance warning to people’s whose lifestyle choices are increasing their risk.

“The score is particularly good at showing when someone is at very low risk of being diagnosed with dementia, and this could be reassuring for people who are worried about it,” she said.

People with a high score could address their risk through activities that have been shown to improve or maintain memory, Walters said. These include eating healthy, exercising more often, remaining socially active, completing memory tasks, and keeping up regular checkups with their doctor.

However, Walters noted that even people who score a high risk are not destined to develop dementia.

“While the test is good at telling who is at higher risk and who is at lower risk, even in the higher risk group the overall risk of being diagnosed with dementia is still very low,” she said. “This is because being diagnosed with dementia under the age of 80 is not very common.”

Heather Snyder, director of medical and scientific operations for the Alzheimer’s Association, said several research groups are looking into similar tests that might reveal dementia risk.

“You can go online and find out your risk for heart disease or osteoporosis, and then we have enough information about things you can do to adjust your risk,” Snyder said. “We don’t have all that information for Alzheimer’s, but that’s where we want to be.”

But the new British test still needs some work before it’s ready for use in doctors’ offices, Snyder said.

While it proved accurate looking at past records, the Dementia Risk Score needs to be tested on new patients to verify its effectiveness, she said.

“This study is all looking back at medical records and information,” Snyder said. “It’s hard to say how this will work in the same population looking forward. Can it proactively predict dementia, and how accurate is that for people?”

Both Snyder and Walters added that since the program was developed and tested in Britain, it would need to be tested on an American population before it could be adopted in the United States.

“We are making all our computer algorithms freely available to other researchers to do this, and the U.S. does have some similar large health care databases where it could be tested,” Walters said. “How long this takes would depend on a research team in the U.S. taking this on. But, if they did this and it worked well, it could be available within a few years.”

More information

For more dementia, visit the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

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Study Pinpoints Best Timing for Rectal Cancer Surgery

THURSDAY, Jan. 21, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Researchers say they’ve pinpointed the best length of time to wait to perform surgery for rectal cancer after chemotherapy and radiation treatment have been completed.

The researchers examined outcomes among 11,760 U.S. patients with stage 2 or 3 localized rectal cancer who had combined chemotherapy and radiation therapy (chemoradiotherapy) and surgery between 2006 and 2012.

Patients who had surgery precisely eight weeks (56 days) after they completed chemoradiotherapy had the best survival rates and successful removal of their tumors. Waiting any longer may increase the risk of tumor regrowth, the study found.

The time between chemoradiotherapy and surgery ranged from 43 to 63 days in the study.

Compared to those who had surgery within 55 days of chemoradiotherapy, those who had surgery after 56 days were slightly older (59 versus 58 years of age) and more likely to be black (9.5 percent versus 8 percent). In addition, they were more likely to be treated at an academic hospital, less likely to have private insurance, and more likely to have stage 3 cancer, the findings showed.

The study was published in the Jan. 20 online edition of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

The findings may help guide doctors when deciding how long patients should wait for surgery after chemoradiotherapy, said study leader Dr. Christopher Mantyh of Duke University, in Durham, N.C.

“In the global picture, there’s a lot of discussion about if waiting longer for surgery is better, and if you don’t wait as long there’s less chance of tumor spreading, but none of it is backed up on good modeling data like we have in this study,” he said in a news release from the American College of Surgeons.

“This kind of analysis is what we need in medicine and surgery. We need to have good population-based data,” Mantyh added.

Colon and rectal cancers are the third most common cancers in the United States, with about 135,000 new cases and 51,000 deaths per year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Patients with many types of cancers have chemoradiotherapy prior to having surgery to remove tumors.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about rectal cancer.

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Parental Debt May Affect Kids’ Behavior

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 21, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The type of debt parents accrue might affect their child’s behavior — for better or worse, new research suggests.

Mortgages fall in the plus column, meaning they’re positively linked to a child’s emotional well-being. But, unpaid credit card bills appear to occupy the negative side, associated with more behavioral problems in kids, researchers determined.

Study co-author Jason Houle said the findings suggest that borrowing money can be a “double-edged sword” for parents and children alike, having “both positive and negative consequences depending on what it’s being used for.”

Houle, an assistant professor of sociology at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., said it stands to reason that debt taken on to better your life — say, a college loan or a mortgage to buy a home in a safer neighborhood — might lead to better outcomes in children. On the other hand, he said, mounting debt linked to high-interest credit cards and short-term investments might indicate economic distress and thus be more harmful.

Houle and co-author Lawrence Berger, a professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, analyzed data from two U.S. studies, which together tracked more than 9,000 mothers and their children ages 5 to 14 between 1986 and 2008.

Debt was characterized as total parent debt: mortgages; student loans; auto loans; and “unsecured debt,” meaning money owed to credit cards, businesses, individuals, banks (aside from mortgages), and/or medical bills.

Debt information was then compared to reports from mothers on their children’s behavior either every year or every other year.

Overall, children whose parents held some debt displayed greater social and emotional well-being than those whose parents had no debt whatsoever. Having debt was more common among parents who were white, American-born, better educated, or married, probably because they had greater ability to borrow in the first place, the researchers noted.

That said, the research team found that those who had more overall debt (regardless of debt type) were more likely to have children with behavior issues than those who had less overall debt.

But digging deeper, the co-authors saw that the largest driver behind that behavior association was unsecured debt, such as unpaid credit card bills.

And children of parents who held some type of unsecured debt were significantly more likely to struggle behaviorally than children of parents who didn’t have such debt.

By contrast, children of parents with mortgages and/or educational debt appeared to face a diminished risk for childhood behavior problems, although the study authors said more research is needed to confirm the finding.

The reason? Houle and Berger said unsecured debt may foster parental stress and/or anxiety. That, in turn, might negatively affect (or reflect) parental behavior, which ultimately worsens prospects for childhood development and well-being.

However, parents with piles of bills shouldn’t fear their kids are doomed to act out. For one thing, the study findings don’t prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship between debt and childhood misbehavior.

Houle suggested that the problem is likely a broad societal issue, rather than the function of individual parental irresponsibility.

“As a sociologist I’m not ready to leave this entirely at the feet of the borrowers,” he said.

For many, debt “is the only choice they have” in the face of stagnating wages and abundant credit, he said.

The study findings were published online Jan. 21 in the journal Pediatrics.

Nadine Kaslow, a professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, described the study as “really important, if not surprising.”

“It makes sense that the type of debt you have makes a difference,” said Kaslow, former president of the American Psychological Association. “And financial stress related to relatively risky spending moves, like credit card debt, is likely to be higher than stress related to more normative spending, like buying a house.”

Kaslow said the stress of credit card debt, perhaps along with the generally riskier lifestyle of parents who take on that type of debt, can trickle down to the children.

“It can be tough on parents,” she said, “but it can also be tough on kids.”

More information

There’s more on childhood and teenage stress at the American Psychological Association.

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Zika Virus Likely to Spread to Southern United States, Experts Predict

By Karen Pallarito
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 21, 2016 (HealthDay News) — As cases of the mosquito-borne Zika virus are spreading across central and South America and the Caribbean, experts say it’s only a matter of time before the disease, which has been linked to an alarming increase in birth defects in Brazil, is transmitted within the United States.

“It’s not if, it’s when,” said Mustapha Debboun, director of the mosquito control division at Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services in Houston.

Travelers to Zika-affected countries will bring the virus back to the United States, he said, “and sooner or later, the mosquitoes will pick up the virus.”

Last Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took the unusual step of warning pregnant women and women who want to become pregnant to avoid travel in 14 countries and territories where Zika transmission is ongoing.

The list, to date, includes Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

On Tuesday, the CDC issued interim guidance to doctors on managing pregnant women returning to the United States from areas with Zika transmission. Obstetricians and other health professionals should ask all pregnant women about their recent travels in the affected areas and test for Zika in those with fever, rash, muscle aches or pink eye during or within two weeks of travel, the CDC said.

The CDC’s warning coincides with reports that nearly 3,900 babies in Brazil have been born in the last year with microcephaly, a birth defect resulting in an abnormally small head that can cause developmental issues and even death.

The Zika virus’ impact on unborn babies remains somewhat of a mystery. Studies are underway to assess its association with microcephaly and other poor outcomes, the CDC said.

Dr. Edward McCabe is senior vice president and chief medical officer of the March of Dimes, a nonprofit group that works to improve the health of mothers and babies. “I think this is concerning. We need to take it seriously,” he said.

Currently, there’s no vaccine to prevent the virus. And developing one could take years, said McCabe, whose organization started following the Zika virus several weeks ago, when the association with microcephaly in Brazil first came to light.

Zika transmission occurs when the Aedes aegypti mosquito takes a blood meal from a person who is infected and passes the virus along while feeding on another person.

U.S. infections reported in recent days — one each in Texas and Hawaii, two in Illinois and three in Florida — involved individuals who had traveled to countries where the virus is endemic.

The Hawaii State Health Department last week announced that a baby born in an Oahu hospital with microcephaly tested positive for a past Zika infection. The newborn likely acquired the virus from the mother, who was living in Brazil in May 2015, officials said.

But the CDC and other experts say Zika transmission within the United States is inevitable.

“With the recent outbreaks in the Pacific Islands and South America, the number of Zika cases among travelers visiting or returning to the United States will likely increase,” the CDC noted in comments accompanying a global map of Zika virus transmission. “These imported cases may result in local spread of the virus in some areas of the United States,” the agency cautioned.

How quickly the virus may begin spreading locally is a matter of speculation.

“There’s a good chance we’ll see it this coming summer, given what we saw with chikungunya two years ago,” said Dawn Wesson, an associate professor of tropical medicine at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, in New Orleans.

Chikungunya is another mosquito-borne illness that spread rapidly in the Caribbean and Central America before popping up in 2014 among non-travelers in Florida.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito prefers warmer climates, making certain areas of the United States more vulnerable to home-grown cases.

“I think that the southern Gulf Coast, South Florida and Southern California are probably all at risk for introduction, and Hawaii,” Wesson said.

Experts say there’s a lot people can do to protect themselves from mosquito bites, including removing any standing water from containers where mosquitoes breed. Other protective measures include liberally applying insect repellent and wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants.

“We have to be alert, we have to be aware. But we don’t have to be alarmists,” Debboun said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about the Zika virus.

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