APHL expanded and deepened its relationships with many federal agencies and programs, improving the flow of information, advocating for the importance of public health laboratories and data and laying the groundwork for potential future collaborations.
As the COVID-19 response continues, APHL has expanded and deepened its relationships with many federal agencies and programs, improving the flow of information, advocating for the importance of public health laboratories and data and laying the groundwork for potential future collaborations. Early in the pandemic response, before federal funding became available, APHL secured $700,000 from the CDC Foundation and other partners and quickly pushed those funds out to laboratories in need of staffing and procurement support. Coordination with a range of external partners has facilitated communication among commercial, clinical, epidemiological and public health laboratories, while new connections with state and local entities, foundations, universities, corporations and other non-public health organizations have helped direct funding, supplies and other support to member laboratories.
Exposure notifications
Through a collaboration with Apple, Google and Microsoft, APHL is helping to bring the COVID-19 exposure notification system to the public health community, enabling state and territorial public health agencies to provide COVID-19 exposure notifications to residents who wish to receive them. APHL is hosting national servers that offer unified digital language for communication to facilitate exposure notifications that involve individuals from different states. As of this writing, 26 states are participating so far, with six states in the pipeline.
Building global leadership
A new comprehensive laboratory leadership program, the Global Laboratory Leadership Programme (GLLP), was born out of an unprecedented collaboration among APHL, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Organisation for Animal Health and the World Health Organization. The two-year fellowship program will mentor and foster current and emerging laboratory leaders to build, strengthen and sustain national laboratory systems around the globe. These leaders will help ensure that laboratories worldwide are ready and able to respond to public health emergencies of international concern.
The GLLP is based on a One Health competency framework that spans human, animal, environmental and other relevant health sectors. Participants from human and animal health laboratories and other laboratories with public health impact will receive didactic training, mentorship and assistance with forming collaborations with local institutions that can provide locally relevant accreditations. The program, a culmination of a multi-year effort, is expected to launch in 2021.
Simplifying regulatory compliance
The laboratory science workgroup of the Partnership for Food Protection released a comprehensive checklist to assist human and animal food testing laboratories in preparing a data package for review by compliance officers for possible regulatory action, and to aid compliance officers when reviewing these data packages. The checklist will help regulatory inspection and laboratory groups planning sample collection and analyses to provide essential regulatory information and includes guidance on the processes and documentation needed to establish and maintain evidentiary integrity of laboratory test results for potential use in legal proceedings.
The Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (CIFOR) Guidelines for Foodborne Disease Outbreak Response were completely revised in 2020. The new third edition highlights recent advances in laboratory testing, new tools in epidemiology and improved environmental assessments and how they will impact outbreak responses at all levels.
Banner: Fairfax County (VA) staff work in a clean room to test COVID-19 samples. Photo: Fairfax County PHL
