LAB MATTERS SUMMER 2020 | CONTENTS
Columns
2 President’s Message
3 Chief Executive Officer’s Message
10 15 Minutes With Karen DeSalvo
Departments
From the Bench
12 Milwaukee Strengthens Surveillance
and Response to Drug-Resistant
Neisseria gonorrhoeae
14 Decontamination and Reuse of N95
Masks During Times of Shortage
Environmental Health
16 During a Pandemic, All Hands On
Deck
Food Safety
18 Cholera at a Wedding? Training the
Next Generation of Public Health
Professionals in Outbreak Response
Global Health
20 A Global Response to COVID-19:
Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe
21 Telling the COVID-19 Data Story on a
Global Scale
Industry Matters
22 Critical Considerations for COVID-19
Detection
23 Building a Business Case for Facility
Improvements
Infectious Diseases
24 The ABCs of MIC Testing for
Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex
Informatics
25 Behind the Data Curtain
Newborn Screening
26 Beyond Newborn Screening: A Fellow’s
Bona Fide Approach to COVID-19 with
Machine Learning
27 Responding Together: APHL and
Newborn Screening Members
Respond to COVID-19
Public Health Preparedness and
Response
28 Laboratory Biosafety: Lessons Learned
From COVID-19
30 Leveraging Drone Technology to
Respond to Public Health Crises
Communications
31 Exciting and Daunting: COVID-19
Brings APHL and Members Into New
Territory
Membership
32 APHL Celebrates 2020 Award Winners
Fellows
33 APHL Fellows: Endings and Beginnings
FEATURE
4 The New World Order of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has become one
of the largest defining events of 2020 for
public health. A hyperfocus on testing has
thrust public health laboratories into the
spotlight, and has revealed the strengths and
weaknesses of public health systems around
the world. While laboratories have responded
with a blend of resilience and ingenuity in the
face of testing snafus, crushing workloads
and massive supply shortages, it is clear that
COVID-19 has changed the future course of
public health.
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Silver Spring, MD 20910
Phone: 240.485.2745
Fax: 240.485.2700
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.aphl.org
The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) works to strengthen
laboratory systems serving the public’s health in the US and globally.
APHL’s member laboratories protect the public’s health by monitoring
and detecting infectious and foodborne diseases, environmental
contaminants, terrorist agents, genetic disorders in newborns and other
diverse health threats.
APHL LAB MATTERS STAFF
Gynene Sullivan, MA, editor
Karen Klinedinst, art director
David Fouse, advisor
To submit an article for consideration, contact
Gynene Sullivan, editor, at [email protected].
APHL 2020-2021 BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Bill Whitmar, MS, president
Denise Marie Toney, PhD, HCLD(ABB), president-elect
Daphne Ware, PhD, secretary-treasurer
Timothy Southern, PhD, D(ABMM), member-at-large
Richard Steece, PhD, D(ABMM), member-at-large
Anthony “Tony” Tran, DrPH, MPH, D(ABMM),
member-at-large
Sally Flowers, PhD, associate institutional member
representative
Sanjib Bhattacharyya, PhD, local institutional member
representative
Megan Crumpler, PhD, local institutional member
representative
Grace E. Kubin, PhD, immediate past president
Scott J. Becker, MS, ex officio, chief executive officer, APHL
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
APHL.org