Maricopa County is now testing mosquitoes for the Zika virus.
The Maricopa County Environmental Services Department added Zika to its list of mosquito-borne diseases that include West Nile.
John Townsend, manager for the Vector Control Division, said the department has been working closely with the Centers for Disease Control.
“The actual testing and the material wasn’t available last year. But, we’ve worked with CDC and got the test set up so that now whenever we do collect these mosquito samples, we can test for those different diseases,” he said.
In March, the first person from Arizona tested positive for Zika. They contracted it outside of the country.
Townsend said Arizona has not had any mosquito samples test positive for the virus, yet.
