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[...] Florida Department of Health confirmed this morning that there's a "high likelihood" that local transmission of Zika has occurred in the United States for the first time

[...] The four cases appear to have been infected in early July just north of downtown Miami in an area of about 2.5 square kilometers, the Florida health department reported after doing intensive investigations to rule out the possibility that the patients were infected by traveling to affected countries or via sex with infected people.

[...] Scientists had predicted that Zika would gain a foothold in Florida this year, based on the heavy volume of travel from Latin America and the presence of A aegypti mosquitoes that can transmit the virus. There have already been nearly 400 cases of travel-related, or "imported" Zika in Florida, which increased the odds that a mosquito would bite an infected person and transmit it to others.

[...] Other viral diseases spread by the same mosquitoes—including dengue and chikungunya—that have caused massive epidemics south of the U.S. border have triggered only small outbreaks in the United States. Scientists cite a variety of factors for the marked difference, including lower mosquito densities and the fact that people spend more time inside.