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February
13, 2006
Little Rock--The Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Health, announced today that its public health laboratory has been approved to perform Reference Level Testing for Avian Influenza (Influenza A/H5). Dr. Glen Baker, interim director, Public Health Laboratory, said, “This test will allow for a faster identification of Avian Influenza. With an AI outbreak, speed is crucial in terms of stopping the spread of disease. We are proud to have been selected as one of the public health laboratories the CDC has certified to perform this testing.”
The A/H5 strain is currently of greatest public health concern due to documented foreign human deaths associated with the strain and its ability to possibly cause a flu pandemic.
This new Reference Level Test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers preliminary detection of H5 avian influenza in human patients in about 4 hours, compared with 2 to 3 days for other methods. The test is to be used on respiratory samples from patients suspected of having avian flu on the basis of severe illness and possible exposure to sick birds.
The CDC has certified the Division of Health to perform this test in its lab. The CDC will distribute the testing technology only to labs that it judges to have the technical capacity and biosafety measures to use the test properly. The CDC will distribute the test through its Laboratory Response Network (LRN), consisting of about 140 labs throughout the country, many of them public health labs.
When LRN labs using the test get positive or equivocal results, they will send the sample to the CDC for confirmatory testing, which will take about 2 to 4 hours once the sample arrives. The definitive identification of A/H5 will then require additional laboratory testing along with clinical and epidemiological investigation.
For more information on the new test, click on
Health
and Human Services or
Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention
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