Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
ZIKA VIRUS OUTBREAK
FEB 18 2016, 1:06 PM ET
Mysteries of the Zika Virus Stump Even the Experts
by MAGGIE FOX
...
One thing that's holding up research is the lack of a quick and easy test for Zika...
...
For instance, Didier Musso of the Louis Malarde Institute in Tahiti and his colleagues found that Zika was easier to detect in saliva than in blood during an outbreak there in 2013 and 2014. They found Zika in the blood of 28 percent of patients with symptoms, but they could get genetic material from the virus out of 57 percent of saliva samples.
...
Ann-Claire Gourinat of the Institut Pasteur in Noumea, New Caledonia, reported this last year, as well, after studying the Tahiti outbreak.
"Urine samples were positive for Zika virus more than 10 days after onset of disease, which was a notably longer period than for serum samples...
Zika has also been found in amniotic fluid, which mostly is made from the urine produced by the fetus, said Dr. Jeanne Sheffield, director of maternal-fetal medicine at Johns Hopkins.
...the findings suggest that testing blood for Zika might not help doctors get on top of the epidemic, Thomas said.
"Between the saliva and the semen and the urine, I'm not sure what the best samples might be," he said, adding, "It also makes me question whether this (is) just a mosquito-to-human transmission."
...
"There's an urgent need to understand the other modes of transmission and to communicate effectively about them," Dr. Andrew Pavia, an expert on infectious diseases at the University of Utah, said at that meeting.
...
Another odd effect of Zika ? or suspected effect ? is what it does to a developing fetus's brain.
...
Doctors who have been able to autopsy miscarriages, abortions or babies who died soon after birth are finding unusual and troubling brain damage not usually associated with microcephaly.
...
Thomas says this fits in with decades-old research on animals that suggests Zika prefers to infect nerve tissue.
And that fits in with the final baffling effect of Zika. Is it causing Guillain-Barre syndrome, an inflammation of the nerves that can cause sometime-serious paralysis after any number of infections?
It could be the virus has changed in some way. It could be cross-reacting with its relative, dengue, in people who have been infected with both. Or it could be something else.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/zika-virus-outbreak/mysteries-zika-virus-stump-even-experts-n520816
FEB 18 2016, 1:06 PM ET
Mysteries of the Zika Virus Stump Even the Experts
by MAGGIE FOX
...
One thing that's holding up research is the lack of a quick and easy test for Zika...
...
For instance, Didier Musso of the Louis Malarde Institute in Tahiti and his colleagues found that Zika was easier to detect in saliva than in blood during an outbreak there in 2013 and 2014. They found Zika in the blood of 28 percent of patients with symptoms, but they could get genetic material from the virus out of 57 percent of saliva samples.
...
Ann-Claire Gourinat of the Institut Pasteur in Noumea, New Caledonia, reported this last year, as well, after studying the Tahiti outbreak.
"Urine samples were positive for Zika virus more than 10 days after onset of disease, which was a notably longer period than for serum samples...
Zika has also been found in amniotic fluid, which mostly is made from the urine produced by the fetus, said Dr. Jeanne Sheffield, director of maternal-fetal medicine at Johns Hopkins.
...the findings suggest that testing blood for Zika might not help doctors get on top of the epidemic, Thomas said.
"Between the saliva and the semen and the urine, I'm not sure what the best samples might be," he said, adding, "It also makes me question whether this (is) just a mosquito-to-human transmission."
...
"There's an urgent need to understand the other modes of transmission and to communicate effectively about them," Dr. Andrew Pavia, an expert on infectious diseases at the University of Utah, said at that meeting.
...
Another odd effect of Zika ? or suspected effect ? is what it does to a developing fetus's brain.
...
Doctors who have been able to autopsy miscarriages, abortions or babies who died soon after birth are finding unusual and troubling brain damage not usually associated with microcephaly.
...
Thomas says this fits in with decades-old research on animals that suggests Zika prefers to infect nerve tissue.
And that fits in with the final baffling effect of Zika. Is it causing Guillain-Barre syndrome, an inflammation of the nerves that can cause sometime-serious paralysis after any number of infections?
It could be the virus has changed in some way. It could be cross-reacting with its relative, dengue, in people who have been infected with both. Or it could be something else.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/zika-virus-outbreak/mysteries-zika-virus-stump-even-experts-n520816