A group of scientist has come together to develop a new method to detect a single virus rapidly in urine; this simple urine test will detect Ebola, Zika, and HIV at the very early stage. This new method is highly selective and will eventually be able to detect a range of viruses that have plagued humans in recent time.

Commenting on this incredible development Jeffrey Dick, co-lead author of the study and chemistry graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin in the US,

While we can not say that the new development will be entirely successful, but so far the work is moving in the right direction. As of now the goal is to build a cheap and easy-to-use device that can be used to detect virus like Ebola on the spot.

But one of the drawbacks of the new method is it’s highly selective, meaning that it will only be able to detect one type of virus and will filter out all the other viruses while testing. Other than this some other process has also been implemented to detect a virus in biological samples.

There are two procedures

There are two processes; the first one requires a higher concentration of virus for it to be detected and the other requires samples to be purified to remove the contaminants.

The researcher, to demonstrate how it will be able to detect the virus, it tested the method on a virus that belonged to the same family as the herpes virus named Murine Cytomegalovirus (MCMV).

To detect the virus, the scientist has taken a sample of mouse urine and have placed an electrode on it. Electrode is a wire used for conducting electricity. After this, the scientist adds to the urine some molecules that are made of enzymes and antibodies which stick to the virus that has to be detected.

Once all the three sticks together and bump into the electrode, it creates an electric current which can quickly detect the virus that has affected the body.