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Public health laboratories' role in influenza testing is primarily surveillance to monitor the distribution and spread of the virus, detection of new variants of the virus, and assistance in outbreak investigations, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) says in a statement issued last month.
Although it is not for managing disease in individual patients, DSHS says, the laboratory can provide reference and diagnostic testing in emergency situations. The statement lists what specimens DSHS will accept for laboratory testing.
This means physicians should send suspected flu specimens to the lab they normally use when trying to diagnose the flu. The DSHS lab was only temporarily analyzing samples during the height of the H1N1 outbreak as directed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Action, June 3, 2009
Last Published: 6/2/2009 Print this page
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