Have you received your flu shot yet? December 6 - 12 is the National Influenza Vaccination Week. It's not too late to get vaccinated; especially with the peak flu season coming up. See how quick and easy my experience was. While your arm might be a little sore; it's worth it to avoid getting sick. [...]
Public Health Laboratory was awarded funds from the Epidemiology Laboratory Capacity cooperative improvement grant to improve laboratory biosafety in Arizona as part of the national response to the Ebola crisis. The funds were awarded to develop a three-year plan to improve the state lab’s biosafety readiness as well as assisting the State Public Health Lab’s [...]
A couple of weeks ago a healthcare worker who recently returned from Saudi Arabia was the first confirmed case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in the U.S. This week the CDC and the Florida health department confirmed a 2nd US case. A person with MERS traveled Saudi Arabia - London - Boston - Atlanta - [...]
A healthcare worker who recently returned from Saudi Arabia is the first confirmed case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in the U.S. The person's in stable condition in isolation in an Indiana hospital. All public health agencies around the world have been carefully watching for new cases of MERS since the disease was [...]
Back in the fall I mentioned the new SARS-like virus, MERS-CoV, which has been causing severe illness, and sometimes death, mainly in the Arabian Peninsula. Four months ago, 103 cases had been reported worldwide, about half of them fatal. Now, 177 cases have been reported, with 74 deaths. The cases are almost all located in [...]
An investigative article published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel a couple of weeks ago has triggered a state by state assessment of newborn screening programs across the country. Arizona is no exception. Our newborn screening and maternal and child health teams have been reviewing our procedures and looking for ways to improve Arizona’s performance. For example, several Arizona [...]
Guest post from Kathryn Wangsness, Chief for the Office of Laboratory Services The Arizona State Public Health Lab is celebrating the dedication of its laboratory personnel next week as part of Laboratory Professionals Week. Laboratory Professionals Week was originally established to honor the more than 300,000 scientists, technicians and pathologists who perform testing vital to [...]
Our Midwifery Scope of Practice Advisory Committee Meeting is meeting from 4 to 6 pm this evening in the Lab conference room (250 N 17 Avenue, Phoenix). The Agenda includes a discussion of the draft U of A Literature Review including a Presentation of the results along with the Draft Rules for Public Comment. The [...]
Those of you that actually read these posts know that we run Arizona’s benchmark public health laboratory. But many of you might not know that we also license and inspect clinical and environmental labs in AZ and even some in other parts of the country through our Clinical and Environmental Laboratory Licensing and Compliance programs. [...]
Our State Lab performed chemical and biological surveillance testing on food samples from the Republican National Convention. We were selected to participate in the testing because of our reputation and previous experience working with the Food Safety Inspection Service for the detection of biological and chemical agents in food. The samples arrived at the State Laboratory [...]
