State Increasing Funding To Counties To Prevent Zika Virus Infections

State officials announced Thursday that they are providing more help to counties to help control their mosquito populations this summer and prevent the spread of the Zika virus.

The Department of Environmental Protection will provide $500,000 in grants to counties for mosquito-control costs, more than 20,000 mosquito traps and dunks, and more than 500,000 mosquito larvae-eating fish.

The grants will go to county mosquito control units for reimbursements they've incurred eliminating mosquitos and hire additional staff.

The 21,000 mosquito dunks are ecologically safe tablets placed in standing water that destroy mosquito larvae.

The DEP will provide 42 motorized mosquito traps — two per county — which will be used to capture mosquitos for testing, and 550,000 larvae-eating fish.

The mosquito Aedes aegypti is the mosquito most known for carrying the Zika virus. It is found in major tropical climates and is unable to survive in New Jersey's water conditions, the DEP said. The mosquito mostly lives in tropical locations.

There have been 21 confirmed cases of the virus in the Garden State, all of them travel-related, including one when a mother from Honduras gave birth to a baby at Hackensack University Medical Centerin May. The baby was born with severe microcephaly, a condition that leaves the baby with a smaller head due to abnormal brain development.

Related: N.J. Baby Born With Zika Defects 3rd U.S. Case

There have been 935 Zika cases reported in the United States — all of which were acquired while traveling outside the continental United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"While the presence of the mosquito that carries the Zika virus is extremely rare in New Jersey, we are taking every precaution to protect our residents and visitors from this and other disease-carrying mosquitos,” DEP Commissioner Bob Martin said.

Bergen County launched a mosquito-management campaign this spring called "Bergen Bites Back." The fish were dumped in ponds in Wyckoff and Ridgewood and will be released in other places.

Email: daniel.hubbard@patch.com. Sign up for Patch N.J. email newsletters here.