Lack of Zika-Specific Test Creates Dilemma for Some Pregnant Women

Washington - Pregnant women who’ve traveled to Latin America and the Caribbean are advised to be tested for the Zika virus afterward. But medical researchers have discovered there’s a problem with that advice: Some diagnostic tests will return positive results even when a person hasn’t contracted Zika.

That ambiguity can force pregnant women who fear giving birth to babies with severe brain damage to make life-changing decisions based on incomplete information.

The discovery by Zika researchers that current antibody tests don’t distinguish between Zika and dengue, another mosquito-borne virus, is the latest twist in the scientific world’s confrontation with a virus long thought relatively harmless but now thought able to cause serious birth defects as well as life-threatening complications in adults.

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