Mistakes at US lab force hundreds of Zika tests to be repeated quoting : nst

"What that means is that we did see evidence of past infection, but we can't say for sure it's Zika," Kuhnert-Tallman said. So far, the DC lab said it has received 62 test results from pregnant women back from the CDC. Of these, 60 tested negative and two tested positive. CDC experts, who have been working with the lab since mid-January, discovered that technicians doing Zika testing were skipping a step, causing all of the test results to be negative, said Dr. Wendi Kuhnert-Tallman, who co-leads the CDC's Zika lab task force. Kuhnert-Tallman said CDC has completed about 100 more tests, and results are being sent back to the lab and the doctors who ordered them.




The lab processed 409 Zika tests, including 294 for pregnant women. Health officials in the District have been encouraging all pregnant women to be tested for Zika if they or their sexual partners have traveled to Zika affected areas. The problem at the District's public health lab was discovered by Anthony Tran, who took over in the fall. He began to suspect something was wrong when all 409 of the secondary Zika tests returned negative results. Accurate testing for pregnant women is particularly urgent because the virus can cause severe defects in developing fetuses, especially early in the pregnancy.

Botched tests lead to retesting for Zika in nation's capital

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VIRUSES and INFECTIONS