Fresno State will open temporary lab to process coronavirus tests
Fresno State will open a temporary lab to process coronavirus tests for Fresno County.
The lab in the university’s Jordan Agricultural Research Center will not collect swab samples from patients. Technicians will conduct complex biological testing on swab specimens to determine whether a patient is positive or negative for COVID-19, the coronavirus.
“We’re offering some of the same technology that’s being used by other lab partners in the public health lab network,” said Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer, during the county’s regular Monday afternoon update. “We actually have a lot of lab expertise here in terms of technicians and directors, and we finally now have received some hardware where we could put our expertise to work locally in collaboration with the biological departments of Fresno State.”
The lab is expected to analyze between 40 to 60 specimens each day.
County and university officials came together Tuesday afternoon to formally seal the deal, which Vohra called “exciting.”
To date, Fresno County has relied on Tulare County Public Health Department’s lab and Quest Diagnostics’ private lab to process test results. The country nationwide has faced a testing shortage, and Fresno County residents expressed frustrations with long wait times to receive results.
“What we envision is that we can actually increase our capacity, our throughput, and most importantly that turnaround time, which I know I’ve publicly grieved about before,” Vohra said. “We’re hoping that we can get that turnaround time reduced as much as possible by having local lab capacity here, and therefore give people the answers that they seek about their COVID-19 status.”
So far, 222 Fresno County residents have tested positive for COVID-19. The health department has tracked more than 3,200 test results but does not receive all the negative results processed by private labs.
This story was originally published April 13, 2020 at 6:06 PM.