When it comes to testing moms-to-be for the presence of Zika, a single negative result may not be enough. \u201cWe monitored a group of pregnant women with a confirmed diagnosis of Zika and tested their urine over a period of several months at intervals of about a week. In some of these women, the viral load in their urine disappeared and later returned,\u201d said principal investigator Maur\u00edcio Lacerda Nogueira from the FAMERP \u2014 Medical School of Sao Jose do Rio Preto, Sao Paulo State.<\/p>\n
The patients included 13 women in different stages of pregnancy (4 weeks to 38 weeks) who were receiving treatment at the Children\u2019s & Maternity Hospital (HCM) of Sao Jose do Rio Preto. According to Nogueira, the virus was detected in one patient\u2019s urine for as long as seven months. In five women, the test was again positive for Zika virus after their viral load had disappeared in previous tests. In all cases, the virus vanished from the women shortly after they gave birth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese results suggest the virus continues replicating during pregnancy, in the foetus or the placenta, which must serve as a reservoir for the pathogen,\u201d Nogueira said. \u201cHowever, viral load in the mother\u2019s fluids is intermittent and very low, almost at the detection threshold.\u201d According to Nogueira, if the result of a molecular test is negative, it should ideally be repeated at least twice at intervals of no less than a week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe typically test urine samples because they\u2019re easier to obtain and because the blood viral load is lower and disappears faster,\u201d he said. Three of the women monitored for the study had babies with complications that were probably caused by Zika: two displayed hearing loss and one was born with a brain cyst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When it comes to testing moms-to-be for the presence of Zika, a single negative result may not be enough. \u201cWe monitored a group of pregnant women with a confirmed diagnosis of Zika and tested their urine over a period of several months at intervals of about a week. In some of these women, the viral […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9221,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9222,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9220\/revisions\/9222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}