There are now more than 600 cases of Zika in the state of Florida.
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One of the drugs, sold as Niclosamide, is already on the market as a treatment for tapeworm.
“The LightMix Zika test is an easy-to-use molecular diagnostic test that enables healthcare professionals to quickly detect the virus”, said Uwe Oberlaender, the head of molecular diagnostics at Basel-based Roche.
Zika usually causes a mild illness but can lead to severe birth defects if women are infected during pregnancy.
Zika was first detected in Brazil past year and has since spread across the Americas.
The research collaboration includes teams from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health and Florida State University.
More information is needed to understand the prevalence and spectrum of hearing loss in children with congenital Zika virus infection, says the CDC.
“In this sort of global health emergency, we don’t have time”, said Song.
Typically, after Zika infection, the damage done to neural cells is “dramatic and irreversible”, says Hengli Tang, Ph.D. Marks said there was a risk that people without symptoms of Zika could donate blood and transmit the virus.
The Brazilian study, published on Tuesday in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly report on death and disease, confirmed less rigorous reports of deafness among infants born to mothers with Zika infections.
Because babies with those infections can appear to have normal hearing at first but show evidence of progressive hearing loss in later checkups, the CDC recommends that babies exposed to Zika have also have regular follow-ups to rule out future hearing decline.
The Zika virus is transmitted primarily by the Aedes aegypti mosquito but can also be spread by sexual contact.
One is already the basis for a drug called Nicolsamide, which was shown no danger to pregnant women in studies and is commonly used to treat tapeworm.
Much of the state’s focus on local transmissions has been on Miami’s Wynwood area and on an area in Miami Beach. The remaining cases are in either the south-central or southwest regions.
About four out of five of those infected with Zika virus do not become ill, which makes it tough to determine whose blood might carry the pathogen, the agency noted.
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Florida health department workers have been going door-to-door in Pinellas, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties to talk to residents about the virus and offer voluntary tests.
