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SHORELINE, Wash. -- You've likely been hearing the word "probable" a lot lately, especially in relation to the H1N1 virus.
That's because only the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta is the only laboratory with the technology necessary to confirm cases of swine flu. And so far, the CDC has not announced any results of test samples submitted from Washington state.
But before any probable cases get handed off to the CDC, all potential cases of swine flu must pass through a state lab where technicians test all samples sent in by county health departments.
"The volume just tends to increase day by day," said lead microbiologist Denny Russell.
It's a process of elimination. The state lab can only rule out known viruses and diseases it can test for. It doesn't have a test for the swine flu.
For the time being, the state must send all probable cases to the CDC for confirmation. But soon the lab will receive its own swine flu tests from the CDC.
"And they will start shipping within a week," said Romesh Gautom, director of Washington Public Health. "Once we have them here in the laboratory again, we will be doing validation. Once the validation is done, our staff is trained to perform the testing and we'll have full capacity to perform the testing here."
Experts say the spread of swine flu in Washington state doesn't appear to be unusually fast.
"It's not exploding; extremely fast. Certainly cases are appearing everywhere," said Bob Hart, CEO of Veratect.
Veratect tracks the spread of diseases worldwide for clients. You might call Veratect the canary in the coal mine.
The company, which contacted the CDC two weeks ago after seeing cases of swine flu increase in Mexico, says Washington fits the trend.
"We see it in the Pacific Northwest, but it's not occurring at a materially different rate than we see elsewhere," said Hart.
The tracking data shows the flu is spreading at the rate of a typical flu. And University of Washington epidemiologist Ira Longini says there's no need for alarm.
"We've lived with influenza for a long time, and we have not been able to eradicate influenza. And we have the tools to keep it too a seasonal nuisance rather than a global catastrophe," he said.
Washington's state lab has received more than a hundreds suspected samples since Monday. It has ruled out a large majority of those samples as something other than swine flu, and sent only 10 samples of probable swine flu to CDC. The lab is awaiting test results.
http://www.komonews.com/news/health/44100847.html
That's because only the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta is the only laboratory with the technology necessary to confirm cases of swine flu. And so far, the CDC has not announced any results of test samples submitted from Washington state.
But before any probable cases get handed off to the CDC, all potential cases of swine flu must pass through a state lab where technicians test all samples sent in by county health departments.
"The volume just tends to increase day by day," said lead microbiologist Denny Russell.
It's a process of elimination. The state lab can only rule out known viruses and diseases it can test for. It doesn't have a test for the swine flu.
For the time being, the state must send all probable cases to the CDC for confirmation. But soon the lab will receive its own swine flu tests from the CDC.
"And they will start shipping within a week," said Romesh Gautom, director of Washington Public Health. "Once we have them here in the laboratory again, we will be doing validation. Once the validation is done, our staff is trained to perform the testing and we'll have full capacity to perform the testing here."
Experts say the spread of swine flu in Washington state doesn't appear to be unusually fast.
"It's not exploding; extremely fast. Certainly cases are appearing everywhere," said Bob Hart, CEO of Veratect.
Veratect tracks the spread of diseases worldwide for clients. You might call Veratect the canary in the coal mine.
The company, which contacted the CDC two weeks ago after seeing cases of swine flu increase in Mexico, says Washington fits the trend.
"We see it in the Pacific Northwest, but it's not occurring at a materially different rate than we see elsewhere," said Hart.
The tracking data shows the flu is spreading at the rate of a typical flu. And University of Washington epidemiologist Ira Longini says there's no need for alarm.
"We've lived with influenza for a long time, and we have not been able to eradicate influenza. And we have the tools to keep it too a seasonal nuisance rather than a global catastrophe," he said.
Washington's state lab has received more than a hundreds suspected samples since Monday. It has ruled out a large majority of those samples as something other than swine flu, and sent only 10 samples of probable swine flu to CDC. The lab is awaiting test results.
http://www.komonews.com/news/health/44100847.html