Alison Kosik, a business correspondent for CNN based in New York, enjoyed a vacation in Costa Rica in late January. Just one day after her return to the United States, she noticed that she had endured various mosquito bites at the beach, and she also started feeling headaches, sweats and chills.

In an interesting report published on CNN.com, Ms. Kosik recounts her odyssey in trying to get tested for Zika. Even though she did not exhibit the usual conjunctivitis, skin rash and joint pain associated with a Zika virus infection, Ms. Kosik followed the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with regard to traveling to Costa Rica and mosquito bites; after all, the first Zika infection in the U.S. was diagnosed in a U.S. tourist bitten by mosquitoes in Playa Nosara, located in the province of Guanacaste.

Ms. Kosik tried the New York Department of Health, a hospital in Long Island, the Time Warner Health Center inside CNN, and even the emergency room at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell. She tried, to no avail, to get a Zika screening at all these places. She got as far as a malaria screening. Thankfully, her health improved enough to file her story and follow up with all the health facilities, which still had not gotten their act together to provide Zika virus testing.

As recently reported by The Costa Rica Star, getting results back from current Zika screenings requires waiting for a few days. Clinical researchers in Brazil, however, have developed a molecular exam for diagnosing Zika within five hours, and this new test will begin being used next week to facilitate studies on methods to combat the virus, academic sources reported Wednesday.

The exam, which is 100 percent accurate, detects Zika in samples of blood, saliva and urine, the University of Campinas announced, where scientists developed the test in association with colleagues at the University of Sao Paulo and the University of Sao Paulo State.

The test will be used starting next Monday to analyze samples from patients suspected of having Zika and receiving treatment at a hospital in Campinas, a city in the interior of Sao Paulo state. The test differentiates among Zika, dengue and Chikungunya, all of which are transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito and have similar symptoms.