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APNewsbreak: Few Zika samples being shared by Brazil
By Maria Cheng, Raphael Satter and Joshua Goodman | AP February 3 at 7:26 PM
RIO DE JANEIRO ? U.N. and U.S. health officials tell The Associated Press that Brazil has yet to share enough samples and disease data needed to answer the most worrying question about the Zika outbreak: whether the virus is actually responsible for the increase in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads in Brazil.
The lack of data is frustrating efforts to develop diagnostic tests, drugs and vaccines. Laboratories in the United States and Europe are relying on samples from previous outbreaks. Scientists say having so little to work with is hampering their ability to track the virus? evolution.
One major problem appears to be Brazilian law. At the moment, it is technically illegal for Brazilian researchers and institutes to share genetic material, including blood samples containing Zika and other viruses.
?It?s a very delicate issue, this sharing of samples. Lawyers have to be involved,? said Dr. Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases in the World Health Organization?s regional office in Washington.
Espinal said he hoped the issue might be resolved after discussions between the U.S. and Brazilian presidents. He said WHO?s role was mainly to be a broker to encourage countries to share. When asked whether the estimate of other scientists that Brazil had provided fewer than 20 samples was true, he agreed it probably was.
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Given the drought of Brazilian samples, public health officials across the world are falling back on older viruses ? or discreetly taking them from private patients.
The U.S. official, who shared the information on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the CDC was relying on a strain taken from a 2013 outbreak in French Polynesia to perfect its Zika tests. U.S. researchers trying to sequence Zika?s genetic code have been forced to rely on virus samples from Puerto Rico for the same reason, he said.
In England, researchers are using samples drawn from Micronesia, the site of an outbreak in 2007. The French are relying on samples from Polynesia and Martinique. In Spain, scientists have a Ugandan strain of Zika supplied by the United States. Even Portugal, Brazil?s former colonial master, doesn?t have the Brazilian strain; the National Health Institute in Lisbon said its tests relied on a U.S. sample from the 1980s, among others.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...d2c8b8-cad5-11e5-b9ab-26591104bb19_story.html
By Maria Cheng, Raphael Satter and Joshua Goodman | AP February 3 at 7:26 PM
RIO DE JANEIRO ? U.N. and U.S. health officials tell The Associated Press that Brazil has yet to share enough samples and disease data needed to answer the most worrying question about the Zika outbreak: whether the virus is actually responsible for the increase in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads in Brazil.
The lack of data is frustrating efforts to develop diagnostic tests, drugs and vaccines. Laboratories in the United States and Europe are relying on samples from previous outbreaks. Scientists say having so little to work with is hampering their ability to track the virus? evolution.
One major problem appears to be Brazilian law. At the moment, it is technically illegal for Brazilian researchers and institutes to share genetic material, including blood samples containing Zika and other viruses.
?It?s a very delicate issue, this sharing of samples. Lawyers have to be involved,? said Dr. Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases in the World Health Organization?s regional office in Washington.
Espinal said he hoped the issue might be resolved after discussions between the U.S. and Brazilian presidents. He said WHO?s role was mainly to be a broker to encourage countries to share. When asked whether the estimate of other scientists that Brazil had provided fewer than 20 samples was true, he agreed it probably was.
...
Given the drought of Brazilian samples, public health officials across the world are falling back on older viruses ? or discreetly taking them from private patients.
The U.S. official, who shared the information on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the CDC was relying on a strain taken from a 2013 outbreak in French Polynesia to perfect its Zika tests. U.S. researchers trying to sequence Zika?s genetic code have been forced to rely on virus samples from Puerto Rico for the same reason, he said.
In England, researchers are using samples drawn from Micronesia, the site of an outbreak in 2007. The French are relying on samples from Polynesia and Martinique. In Spain, scientists have a Ugandan strain of Zika supplied by the United States. Even Portugal, Brazil?s former colonial master, doesn?t have the Brazilian strain; the National Health Institute in Lisbon said its tests relied on a U.S. sample from the 1980s, among others.
...
More...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...d2c8b8-cad5-11e5-b9ab-26591104bb19_story.html