APNewsbreak: Few Zika samples being shared by Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO – U.N. and U.S. health officials tell the Associated Press that Brazil has yet to share enough samples and disease data needed to answer the most worrying question about the Zika outbreak: whether the virus is actually responsible for the increase in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads in Brazil.

The lack of data is frustrating efforts to develop diagnostic tests, drugs and vaccines. Laboratories in the United States and Europe are relying on samples from previous outbreaks. Scientists say having so little to work with is hampering their ability to track the virus’ evolution.

One major problem appears to be Brazilian law. At the moment, it is illegal for Brazilian researchers and institutes to share genetic material, including blood samples containing Zika and other viruses.

“It’s a very delicate issue, this sharing of samples. Lawyers have to be involved,” said Dr. Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases in the World Health Organization’s regional office in Washington.

Espinal said he hopes the issue might be resolved after discussions between the U.S. and Brazilian presidents. He said WHO’s role was mainly to be a broker to encourage countries to share but so far Brazil had probably provided fewer than 20 samples.

“There is no way this should not be solved in the foreseeable future,” he said. “Waiting is always risky during an emergency.”

In May, as the first cases of Zika in Brazil were emerging, President Dilma Rousseff signed a law to regulate how researchers use the country’s genetic resources. But the regulatory framework hasn’t yet been drafted.

“Until the law is implemented, we’re legally prohibited from sending samples abroad,” said Paulo Gadelha, president of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil’s premier state-run research institute for tropical diseases. “Even if we wanted to send this material abroad, we can’t because it’s considered a crime.”

The ban does not necessarily mean foreign researchers can’t access samples. Some were shared with the U.S., including tissue samples from two newborns who died and two fetuses recently examined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But a U.S. official said that wasn’t enough to develop accurate tests for the virus.

Given the drought of Brazilian samples, public health officials across the world are falling back on older viruses – or discreetly taking them from private patients.

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the CDC was relying on a strain taken from a 2013 outbreak in French Polynesia to perfect its tests. U.S. researchers trying to sequence Zika’s genetic code have been forced to rely on samples from Puerto Rico for the same reason, he said.

Some researchers are bypassing Brazil’s bureaucracy by getting samples sent to them for testing by a private lab, said Dr. Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit, an expert on mosquito-borne diseases at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg.

“It’s almost impossible to get samples from the country,” Schmidt-Chanasit said, referring to Brazil. “It’s not going via official government channels. Our source is simply the rich people who want a diagnosis.”