The anonymous folks who test swabs for H1N1
The Baltimore Sun’s Stephanie Desmon profiled the crew of state workers laboring behind the scenes to test and identify samples of H1N1 and other strains of influenza.
Maryland is one of a dozen states testing to make sure the virus hasn’t mutated and become drug resistant. It’s labs such as these that will be the first to sound the alarm when H1N1 has returned with a vengeance, Desmon writes, and the data they forward to the CDC is crucial in the fight against flu.
Dr. Robert A Myers, deputy director of the state public health laboratory, explained some of the lab’s testing processes, saying that “I try to dispel the ‘CSI’ fact that everything takes 15 minutes.”
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