Lab Matters Summer 2017 | Page 8

infectious diseases
The latest example of this is in Minnesota , where a measles outbreak hit 78 confirmed cases as of June 16 . The state is typically home to less than a handful of measles cases each year — most years , the case count is between zero and two . At the Minnesota Department of Health ’ s Public Health Laboratory , which is the only lab in the state that can do real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction ( rRT-PCR ) testing for measles , staff received more than 800 specimens for measles testing between April and June , with a goal of fully processing each one the same day it ’ s received . To stop an outbreak , both speed and accuracy are critical .
Fortunately , Minnesota lab workers are trained and ready to provide both . But sustaining that kind of surge capacity over the long run and in the face of new and emerging disease threats is always challenging — even in the best funding environments .
Measle virus

On the Front Lines of Vaccine- Preventable Outbreaks

by Kim Krisberg , writer
In the US , rates of vaccine-preventable diseases are so low that many commercial labs don ’ t even have the ability to test for them anymore . The shift reflects the hard work of decadeslong immunization efforts . But it also means that when there is a vaccine-preventable outbreak , just about all of our rapid diagnostic capacity resides in one place : the public health lab .
“ We ’ ve spent a lot of time increasing our capacity over the last 10 years and we ’ re seeing that capacity being put to work ,” said Sara Vetter , PhD , manager for infectious diseases at the Minnesota Public Health Laboratory . Vetter noted that Minnesota last experienced a measles outbreak in 2011 —“ and that one seemed huge and it was just 26 cases of measles .”
This year ’ s measles outbreak was almost entirely concentrated in a Somali community in Minnesota ’ s Hennepin County , home to more than 1 million residents . The outbreak officially began on April 10 , the same day the lab confirmed the first positive case . Nearly all the cases were among unvaccinated children younger than four years old .
Inside the public health lab ’ s Virology / Immunology Unit , technicians tracked the measles outbreak using an rRT-PCR assay , which allows them to detect the highly contagious virus much quicker than private labs that can perform serological testing for measles antibodies . That quickness is key , said Anna Strain , PhD , supervisor of the Virology / Immunology Unit , because it means the health agency ’ s epidemiology team
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LAB MATTERS Summer 2017
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