The University of South Alabama (USA) Health and Synergy Laboratories have announced the expansion of their COVID-19 testing partnership to expand services offering surveillance testing to employer groups.

The two organizations have partnered alongside one another since the early stages of the pandemic. Together, USA Health and Synergy have administered over 600,000 COVID-19 tests for residents of South Alabama. The partnership expansion enables them to offer testing to employer groups for surveillance purposes.

Brad Pitts of Synergy said the new offering service comes on the heels of an increased interest in employers wishing to implement mitigation efforts stemming from the spread of the Delta variant.

“Surveillance testing has already been utilized in several different arenas,” said Pitts. “As we have seen local and regional numbers spike from the Delta variant, we anticipate more employer groups wanting to protect employees and quite simply keep their doors open by testing.”

The entities cited the strain of Alabama’s health care infrastructure due to the rapid increase in positive cases.

Dr. Ross of USA Industrial Medicine applauded the partnership’s new testing offering.

“We are excited to expand our ability to offer testing for all local employers through aligning our resources at USA with Synergy Labs,” said Ross. “There are many testing options available in the market we reviewed, but the multiple platforms provided by our partners at Synergy will allow for timely results and keep Mobile working. Pooling options at Synergy will be a cost-effective option for employers and it is important we offer dependable FDA approved platforms while not breaking the bank.”

Pooling samples is a process of combining multiple patients into one test and has proven to be an effective strategy for testing large asymptomatic groups.

Synergy COO Brandon Biles said the testing strategy has already been implemented for various athletic programs, citing the need to apply the same method to workplace testing.

“We have been able to pool test for various entities such as athletic programs, which allow for targeted testing within subsets or groups of people within a workout group or position group,” said Biles. “I feel this same theory could be used in the workplace as often we are segmented by departments similar to an athletic team.”

Molecular supervisor Emily Powers noted the work that has been put in to study the project.

“Pooling samples for asymptomatic surveillance is a project we have been working on for some time,” stated Powers. “The high throughput automation offered through our Tecan liquid handlers eliminates hours of work, allowing for faster turnaround times. Pooling samples for SARs-Cov-2 testing involves mixing several samples in a “batch” or pooled sample, then testing the pooled sample with a diagnostic test.

She added, “This approach increases the number of individuals that are tested using the same number of resources. For example, five samples may be tested together, using only the necessary resources for a single test. This method of pooling samples works well when there is a low prevalence of cases, mainly meaning negative results are expected with few positive results.”

Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Tuesday announced that the Trump administration has begun distributing millions of easy-to-use, rapid-result COVID-19 tests directly to state governments across the country, including Alabama.

These Abbott BinaxNOW tests deliver results in 15 minutes; they are the only FDA-authorized antigen rapid point-of-care tests that do not require an instrument.

Governor Kay Ivey’s office said that Alabama is being supplied with “over 1 million” of the BinaxNOW tests by the federal government.

Ivey applauded President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for their leadership in this effort. This comes after the Trump administration last month purchased 150 million of the tests to ensure states could quickly and equitably receive them immediately following FDA approval. (more…)

Prominent epidemiologists and medical professionals are advocating the introduction of an inexpensive rapid antigen immunoassay tests similar to a home pregnancy test. Prototype COVID-19 tests are being developed and are under evaluation to be commercially available later in the year. The demand for rapid tests is based on the reality that highly sensitive lab-based molecular (PCR) assays, which measure viral RNA, may not yield a result for most people even those with symptoms for periods from four to 10 days.

As the COVID-19 virus continues to spread, there is an ever-increasing demand for testing, which now exceeds the infrastructure for rapid testing and results. Nightly news programs show long line of cars in high risk areas waiting for several hours to submit nasopharyngeal swabs. In addition, there is an insufficient number of laboratories that can perform the PCR tests and only two national companies that make the necessary reagents required for the assays. (more…)

Two drive-thru COVID-19 screening locations will open this week in the Montgomery area as part of a partnership between the City of Montgomery and Hyundai Motor Manufacturing.

The sites are on Mobile Highway in the city Montgomery and in the small town of Hayneville, around 30 minutes southwest of Montgomery’s city limits.

Testing is free of charge to members of the public, but an individual must have an appointment to be screened at one of the locations.
(more…)

The Alabama Department of Public Health announced Wednesday that certain new groups of people are eligible for COVID-19 testing, including all Alabamians who have underlying medical conditions making them more vulnerable to the virus.

Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 43.1% of Alabamians over age 18 have a health condition that puts them at higher risk for becoming seriously ill due to the coronavirus.

Before Wednesday’s announcement, the only people eligible for testing through the ADPH were those currently experiencing symptoms.

The ADPH said in a release, “By widening the conditions to test high-risk people before symptoms appear, the risk of continued transmission of the virus is lessened and timely case investigations and contact tracing can begin earlier.”
(more…)

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has announced that it will be opening a drive-up coronavirus screening site on Monday, March 23.

The new location will be in downtown Birmingham and, because of limited supplies, will conduct 250 screenings per day.

Citizens who are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 — fever, cough, shortness of breath — must call and make an appointment before they will be screened for the virus.
(more…)

Scientists and researchers in Alabama are engaged in the global effort to stem threats posed by the COVID-19 disease.

Today, Huntsville’s Diatherix announced that it has developed a highly sensitive and specific assay, or test, for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the COVID-19 respiratory infection.

Diatherix, located on the Huntsville campus of the HudsonAlpha Institute of Biotechnology, also said its lab is prepared to evaluate respiratory specimens collected by healthcare providers for COVID-19. (more…)