Keith Pardee, a professor of pharmacy at the University of Toronto (Canada), and a team of researchers from Harvard University (United States) have developed a cheap test to quickly detect the Zika virus in the blood and saliva of infected people.
It could be available in the coming months and cost only one dollar per patient (88 euro cents), according to their study published on May 6 in the journal Cell.
The test changes color to signal the presence of the virus
Easy to use, the diagnostic tool changes color if the Zika virus is present or not in the sample. According to the researchers, even an untrained eye can easily understand the result.
“This new test makes it possible to detect the virus at much lower concentrations than before,” put forward scientists from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.
Zika: two more approved screening tests
Two tests, the Zika MAC-ELISA and the Trioplex Real-Time RT-PCR Assay, have already been approved by the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) .
However, they are more complicated to implement because they sometimes confuse Zika with similar viruses such as West Nile virus or dengue.
No treatment or vaccine for the zika virus
Zika is caused by a virus transmitted by the bite of a tiger mosquito infected in tropical areas. The insect, of the genus Aedes, also transmits dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. Others transmission modes were put forward: by sexual way, through blood transfusions or from mother to child.
Symptoms of zika: fever, rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, and headache. These beneficial symptoms usually go away within 2 to 7 days. The virus can also cause fetal malformations, such as microcephaly, neurological disorders such as Guillain-Barrà © syndrome.
To date, there is no antiviral treatment or vaccine against the virus. On the other hand, symptomatic treatment with analgesics (paracetamol) against pain and fever is recommended.
Remember that the zika virus affects more than 1.5 million cases in Brazil, the most affected country. In France, 247 cases have been identified.
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