Although many viruses can already be detected by tests, there's none that can detect virtually all of them in one go--until now.
A team of researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine has developed ViroCap, which has the ability to find thousands of viruses that may endanger a person's and even animal's life in a hopefully less expensive and accessible manner.
The test is designed to be very sensitive that not only can it detect more viruses that other known tests today, it can also catch them when they are at their low levels, which usually don't show up in standard examinations, but using a more advanced genome sequencing method. This simply means that a person may be checked for viruses other than the one that might be causing the illness. It also has the ability to work on different virus strains.
To test ViroCap, the researchers conducted two tests. In the first test, they worked with 14 patients of St. Louis Children's Hospital. Although the standard tests were able to identify presence of viruses in 10 of these patients, the new tests revealed viruses that weren't detected by the standard examination, including influenza B, which causes seasonal flu, and herpes virus 1, which can lead to cold sores of the mouth.
In the second test, 8 children with fevers that cannot be fully explained were recruited. In the standard test, at least 11 viruses were found. However, the new test discovered 7 more.
Overall, the new test was responsible for more than 50% jump of virus detection.
The test can be extremely helpful for viruses that have the tendency to cause outbreaks such as Ebola, which has killed more than 7,000 people in three West African nations, as well as norovirus.
Its sensitivity is comparable to the assay usually used in clinical laboratories around the world, but this new test can detect more viruses simultaneously.
However, it may take some time before the new test is released commercially since the researchers still need to confirm its accuracy.
