The Pima County Health Department and the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center have a new hot line for those with concerns about the Zika virus.
The phone number, 1-877-518-4633, is for anyone in the community, including healthcare providers, who has questions about any mosquito-borne illness, including Zika and West Nile.
The phone line provides community members with a 24/7 contact to a Pima County health-care provider to ask questions and get information.
The purpose of the line, created through a $49,900 grant from the Arizona Department of Health Services, is to be a single-point resource for health-care providers, first responders, laboratories, other public-health agencies and community partners, county officials say.
The Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center, operated by the University of Arizona, will staff and maintain the line.
As of Oct. 7, there have been 39 confirmed cases of Zika virus in Arizona, state health department data show. Six of those cases were in Pima County. All confirmed Arizona cases were related to travel and were not acquired in state, the officials say.
Researchers at the UA have developed a mobile app called Kidenga to help quantify populations of mosquitoes that carry Zika and other viruses, and to provide early warning of outbreaks in states from Florida to California.
