With the Zika virus starting to spread to other countries, medical researchers have stepped up their efforts to discover a better way to test potential infections and even a vaccine that would effectively protect people from the dreaded disease.
Researchers from Texas Children's and Houston Methodist hospitals announced the creation of the first rapid test in the United States meant to diagnose people suspected of being infected with the Zika virus.
The new diagnostic procedure is designed to scan the blood, urine, spinal fluid and amniotic fluid from a person to find out if they contain traces of the virus' genetic material. The developers hope that it would be able to cut down the time it typically takes to make a conclusive diagnosis from one month to just a day.
While Texas Children's and Houston Methodist will make the rapid Zika virus test available to their own patients for now, the two hospitals plan to offer the procedure to patients of other medical facilities as well.
"We really pulled out all the stops to get this test generated," Dr. James Musser, head of the pathology and genomic medicine department at Houston Methodist, said.
"We desperately need a test that's rapidly available locally."
Kathy Barton, spokeswoman for the Health Department of Houston, said on Monday that their researchers are finalizing the certification of their own Zika virus diagnostic procedure.
Previous testing for the illness involved sending samples to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or to public health agencies on the state level that have the ability to detect the Zika virus.
Some hospitals have been trying to develop their own diagnostics for the Zika virus. Musser said he expects these organizations to announce their disease testing soon.
Meanwhile, scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston are now working closely with officials from the Brazilian government for a potential vaccine for the Zika virus, which has devastated much of the South American nation and other nearby countries.
The team has been studying the mosquito-borne disease since the 1960s and has even issued a warning about the dangers of the illness as early as 2009.
"I guess until the virus really got to Brazil and there were a lot of cases, nobody really was interested in Zika," Dr. Robert Tesh, one of the UTMB researchers, said.
"Times have changed and now we realize how much we don't know."
The Zika virus has been associated with the prevalence of the congenital defect known as microcephaly in infants. The condition causes babies to develop abnormally sized heads as a result of stunted brain growth.
Photo: John Tann | Flickr
