Why it’s so hard to diagnose Zika

From Reuters
October 17, 2018

CHICAGO (Reuters) – When a Zika epidemic was at its height in the Americas two years ago, diagnostics makers began working feverishly to create diagnostic tests for a virus that few in the U.S. had heard of.

Those efforts have now largely stalled, as public concern has waned, health experts say, and the development of inexpensive tests that can quickly detect Zika infections and distinguish them from similar mosquito-borne diseases remains elusive.

A lack of testing capacity has hampered efforts to track Zika in Angola, where a largely unreported cluster of microcephaly cases has been linked to the virus, and left mothers vulnerable to an illness that can cause severe birth defects in developing fetuses.

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