Symptoms of the Zika virus can be masked by simultaneous infection with other mosquito-borne viruses like dengue fever and chikungunya. To solve this issue, researchers have developed a comprehensive diagnostic test to identify multiple co-infections.
Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, director of the UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center at the University of California San Francisco, led a team of researchers to develop a new testing method capable of detecting co-infections.
By using a metagenomics laboratory test that essentially serves as a genetic fingerprint database, Dr. Chiu and his team were able to identify two cases of chikungunya/Zika co-infection among fifteen samples of previously confirmed Zika cases from Brazil. The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.
"With these viruses, the symptoms associated with acute illness, including fever, rash, joint pains and conjunctivitis, are non-specific, so it is difficult to make an accurate diagnosis based on clinical findings alone," said Dr. Chiu. "It's easy to imagine a physician failing to detect Zika when they instead suspect a different virus that causes similar symptoms, and then their suspicion is confirmed by a diagnostic test designed to detect only that virus — they might easily miss a co-infection if they do not test for more than one virus."
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