Federal health officials credit aerial spraying with halting the outbreak of Zika in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, which had been under a travel alert for pregnant women.

  • Aerial spraying halted Zika outbreak in Wynwood, CDC says
  • Wynwood had been under CDC travel alert for pregnant women
  • Gov. Scott visited area, called for a return to normal

The area has not reported any new cases of the mosquito-borne Zika illness in 45 days.

Aggressive aerial spraying with naled, an insecticide that targets adult mosquitoes, and Bti, which kills mosquito larva, was used to reduce the number of the type of mosquitoes that spread the virus.

"The message with Wynwood is it was a huge success," said Dr. Lyle Peterson of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports the Associated Press. "This outbreak would have kept going without the aerial spraying."

So far, 79 cases of Zika in Florida are not travel related.

Meanwhile, a local transmission area in nearby Miami Beach was expanded just last week. The area grew from about 1.5 square miles to 4.5 square miles.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said local officials will continue their aggressive effort in combatting the virus, but there are no plans to widen the area for the controversial aerial spraying.

Earlier Monday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott visited Wynwood, which became the first place in the U.S. mainland to have mosquitoes transmitting the virus to people. Scott called for a return to normal.

"We need to come back to Wynwood. We need to come to the restaurants. We need to come to the galleries. We need to do it as quickly as possible. So many of these businesses gave been impacted. ... People's livelihoods are tied to this. There's a lot of jobs tied to this. We've go to get everybody back to a position that they can have the same success they had before this happened," Scott said.

On Friday, Scott authorized an addition $10 million in state funds to fight Zika.

In late August, all of Central Florida's main theme parks — Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando — announced they would provide free insect repellent to their guests.

Information from CNN and the Associated Press was used in this report.