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Congress took nearly eight months to send money to help fight a dire public health threat. Now that lawmakers have approved $1.1 billion, health officials say the funds can't arrive quickly enough to make up for lost time. "The point is to make sure that it reaches the local health department,” said Dallas County Health Director Zach Thompson. “When it gets down to it, all public health is local when you are responding to an outbreak.” (Sun and Dennis, 9/30)

A measure signed into law by President Obama includes money to help combat the Zika virus. Florida is expected to be one of the areas to get a large amount of the funds. That’s in addition to the millions of dollars in state money Governor Rick Scott has already set aside in the Zika fight. But, questions now remain about when and how the funds will be distributed to help affected Floridians. (Cordner, 9/30)

Men who may have been exposed to the Zika virus should wait at least six months before trying to conceive a child with a partner, regardless of whether they ever had any symptoms, federal health officials are recommending. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had previously recommended that only men with Zika symptoms had to wait that long. Those who may have been exposed to Zika but never developed any symptoms were told to hold off on trying to conceive for just eight weeks. (Stein, 9/30)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says couples with possible Zika risk should wait much longer before trying to get pregnant. The agency said Friday that couples in which the man has possibly been exposed to Zika but is not displaying symptoms should wait six months before trying to get pregnant, rather than eight weeks as the agency previously advised. (McIntire, 9/30)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is stepping up its warnings about the Zika virus for couples trying to become pregnant. CDC officials said Friday that women should wait at least six months before trying to get pregnant if their partner has possible Zika exposure. The previous recommendation had been eight weeks. (Ferris, 9/30)

Serious complications are rare among children infected with the Zika virus after birth, federal health researchers concluded in a study published on Friday — a rare bright spot in the unfolding story of the epidemic. (Saint Louis and McNeil, 9/30)

Three new travel-related Zika cases in Orange County were confirmed by the state health department on Friday, bringing the county's total to 84. Since earlier this year, Osceola County has reported 30 travel-related Zika cases, while Seminole has reported 21 and Lake has reported 3. (Miller, 10/3)

Zika wasn't even on Dr. Sankar Swaminathan's mind when he first examined a severely ill 73-year-old man in a Salt Lake City hospital in June. The patient had just returned from a visit to Mexico when he suddenly fell violently ill. "We were not thinking about Zika at all because Zika usually does not cause severe illness, in fact it almost never does," says Swaminathan, chief of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Utah. (Beaubien, 9/30)

As summer melts away, one traditional feature was absent this year, nighttime mosquito fogging truck trips noisily sputtering up and down Newnan streets. The city of Newnan has been spraying for mosquitoes for many years. Exactly how many years seems to be lost in the mists of time, but it has been at least 25 years. But late in the summer of 2015, the city quietly suspended its “low volume fogging” mosquito control program in response to a campaign by No Spray Newnan, a group of local residents who advocated for a better way to control mosquitoes, and asked for their own yards not to be sprayed. (Campbell, 10/1)