HOUSTON â Texas Children's Hospital and Houston Methodist Hospital have collaborated on the country's first hospital-based rapid tests for the Zika virus.
The tests can be performed on blood, amniotic fluid, urine or spinal fluid, and are customized to each hospital's diagnostic laboratory. The tests will provide results within several hours.
It was developed as part of the L.E. and Virginia Simmons Collaborative in Virus Detection and Surveillance, a sponsored program designed to facilitate rapid development of tests for virus detection in a large metropolitan area.
"With travel-associated cases of the Zika virus becoming more prevalent in the United States, coupled with the looming increase in mosquito exposure during spring and summer months, we must be prepared for a surge of Zika testing demand," James Versalovic, M.D., Ph.D. pathologist-in-chief at Texas Children's, said. "We must provide answers for anxious moms-to-be and families who may experience signs and symptoms or may simply have travel history to endemic areas."
"Hospital-based testing that is state-of-the-art enables our physicians and patients to get very rapid diagnostic answers. If tests need to be repeated or if our treating doctors need to talk with our pathologists, we have the resources near patient care settings," James M. Musser,M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Pathology and Genomic Medicine at Houston Methodist Hospital, said.
Only registered patients at Texas Children's or Houston Methodist hospitals can receive the test at this time, but the labs will consider referral testing from other hospitals and clinics in the future.