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There is no vaccine. No medication. And, no quick, reliable test for Zika virus ... until now. Babies born with the virus often have lifelong, devastating birth defects. Testing for the virus currently involves trained medical staff drawing and mailing blood samples to a lab, a process that can take up to four weeks.
"Most adults with Zika have mild flu-like symptoms or no symptoms at all. Couples trying to conceive might not even know if they are infected and at risk," Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak urology scientist Laura Lamb, Ph.D., said.
Dr. Lamb and her Beaumont colleagues developed a quick, simple test for Zika virus so easy to administer, you don't even need a doctor. It's a urine test that produces results in under 30 minutes.
"When we discovered we could reliably detect Zika virus in urine, we knew we had the potential to change lives all over the world," Dr. Lamb said.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MrGuy on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:57PM (3 children)
OK, I get this part: Urine Test Could Detect Zika Virus Quickly. That's really good news, and very important as a breakthrough.
I don't get this part Protect Unborn Babies. How does a test for the virus "protect" unborn babies? There's no cure for zika. There's no treatment. For example, there's no treatment where, if administered early enough in pregnancy, could prevent the transmission of the virus to a fetus. If there were something, anything modern medicine could do to treat zika, then a test for it could "protect unborn babies." But as it is, all that a test can do is tell an expectant mother that she has zika. Not do anything to help her or her unborn child.
I suppose knowing this could help take unknowns out of a decision to terminate a pregnancy, but that's not really "protecting unborn babies." I also suppose a test could let someone who's infected know to avoid pregnancy (or to avoid sex with someone else who is zika-positive). But that's preventing pregnancies, not "protecting unborn babies."
Unfortunately, we're still a long way from having any way to truly protect unborn babies from zika.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @07:39PM
let someone who's infected know to avoid pregnancy
Exactly right.
The test would help inform people when they should plan on having a child - either when both parents are uninfected or when the infection has cleared. Zika virus genomic RNA can persist in sperm for quite a long time after the initial symptomes.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:33PM
Not so much protecting unborn babies as protecting hypothetical babies before they're conceived. "Hey you've got Zika; don't get pregnant."
Try harder, I know we can force "think of the children" in here somehow! :)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:21PM
Presumably so fetuses don't have to be developed and born into a life of misery where they wish to kill themselves.