As previously discussed, the CDC and several state and local health departments are presently testing for the Zika virus. They employ different diagnostic tests to help determine if a person is infected with Zika virus disease. The CDC has asked all healthcare providers to contact their state or local health department to facilitate the testing. Moreover, the FDA has issued Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) status for several Zika virus diagnostic tests for distribution to qualified laboratories. More details on EUA testing will be provided in the next section of this course.
Testing of specimens within the US for Zika virus infection is currently limited to specimens collected from those patients meeting CDC's criteria for testing (
https://www.cdc.gov/zika/symptoms/symptoms.html). As previously mentioned, the CDC currently sends all test results to the appropriate state or local health department and in turn, the state or local health department forwards test results to the referring physician. Test reports are then given to the patient by the referring physician.
The following CDC links contain important information and guidelines on laboratory testing for the Zika virus:
