Health officials have confirmed the first case of Zika virus in Shawnee County. Craig Barnes, a spokesman for the Shawnee County Health Department, says an adult tested positive for the virus after traveling.
“It wasn’t a mosquito here in the community that bit somebody. It was an individual who traveled to an area where active local transmissions of the Zika virus are happening, contracted it there and brought it back,” says Barnes.
The CDC says there have been more than a dozen Zika cases confirmed in Kansas, all in people who contracted the disease while traveling.
Federal officials say the types of mosquito that can transmit Zika have been found in Kansas in the past.
The Kansas Information Network contributed to this report.