The Mississippi Department of Health issued the following press release:
State-of-the-Art Thompson Public
Health Laboratory
Now Open for Business
JACKSON,
Miss. – The Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) held a ribbon-cutting
today for the Dr. F.E. “Ed” Thompson, Jr. State Public Health Laboratory on its
central office campus in Jackson.
Construction
began on the $36 million laboratory in 2010. The 80,000 square foot facility provides
state-of-the-art lab space that now allows the agency to more
efficiently monitor and respond to public health threats.
“This new
facility gives Mississippi the capacity to prepare and respond to all types of
public health emergencies and to test for numerous diseases,” said MSDH State
Health Officer Dr. Mary Currier. “Our previous lab was built in 1959 and was no
longer adequate to support the technology used today to protect our citizens
from disease outbreaks, harmful environmental contaminants, and emerging health
threats.”
The MSDH laboratory has assisted health authorities in the prevention
and control of public health threats in Mississippi since 1917. As the state’s only
public health laboratory, the facility serves the citizens of Mississippi by
performing more than 175 different tests on the more than 600,000 samples
received each year.
The facility
routinely performs a wide range of tests that detect biological, toxicological,
chemical and radiological threats to the health of the population including
testing for Zika Virus in recent travelers, rabies in animals, Salmonella or E.coli in food, and contaminants in drinking water.
The laboratory
also has capabilities to respond rapidly to public health emergencies such as
novel strains of flu, suspicious substances containing anthrax or ricin, and
unusual events like widespread flooding or hurricanes.
“This
sophisticated, 21st century lab was a dream for Dr. Thompson,” said
State Board of Health Chairman Dr. Luke Lampton. “He was a true public health
champion in every sense and was incredibly instrumental in getting this project
off the ground. I am certain Dr. Thompson would be especially pleased with the
final result.”
Unlike the
former facility, the Thompson lab meets the national standards established for
laboratories that work with highly infectious substances. The laboratory is equipped with more than 3,000
square feet of Biosafety Level 3 containment areas, which allow the laboratory
staff to work safely with highly infectious agents such as multi-drug resistant
tuberculosis or newly emerging pathogens such as Ebola.
The MSDH
laboratory’s 85-member staff moved into the facility in January 2016.
For more
information on services the public health laboratory provides, visit the MSDH
website at www.HealthyMS.com/phl.
Follow MSDH
by e-mail and social media at HealthyMS.com/connect.
5 comments:
1959 - 2016? Uh, yea. It was time for a new one.
Maybe they can do something to lower the high rate of STDs in Jackson.
After 4+ years of promising laboratory employees that they will be moving into the new facility “soon”, it finally opened. Using the facility as a glorified storage unit all of those years was, by no means, an efficient way of spending taxpayers dollars!!! Maybe they can get some of the lost grants and federal funding back. #TheCheapComesOutExpensive
lowest bidder got the job and screwed up the ventilation. took several years to fix. unbelievable. lowest bidder gets job, screws it up, then cost taxpayers more to correct the problem. Maybe instead of using lowest bidder we can use competent bidder
10:38, how competent a bidder is has nothing to do with who is awarded the bid. What color the owner is has much more importance than competency.
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