Tag: PCR

[2021] 1st Area Medical Laboratory Soldiers train with Ukrainian military doctors

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

1st Area Medical Laboratory Soldiers train with Ukrainian military doctors (Archived)

KYIV, Ukraine – Soldiers from the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland-based 1st Area Medical Laboratory and Fort Detrick, Maryland-based U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases trained with Ukrainian military medical professionals.

Six 1st AML Soldiers and a USAMRIID Soldier deployed to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv from June 3 – 18.

Maj. Jang-woo Lee, the 1st AML chief of Endemic Disease and Biological Warfare Assessment, said the American Soldiers supported the establishment of a Ukraine Ministry of Defense Biological Mobile Diagnostics Unit.

The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency training initiative focused on polymerase chain reaction diagnostic testing and field identification of biological agents. Lee said the U.S. troops delivered training lectures, hands-on training and field training exercises with Ukrainian troops in laboratory and field environments, using commercially available materials.

“U.S. subject matter experts trained their Ukrainian counterparts who will provide the training to their Soldiers to increase the readiness of the deployable mobile laboratories,” said Lee, an Operation Enduring Freedom veteran who is originally from South Korea. “I believe that the impact and influence of this effort will be greater than the two-week training.”

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The 1st Area Medical Laboratory is part of the 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives (CBRNE) Command, the U.S. Department of Defense’s only multifunctional all hazards headquarters.

From 19 military installations in 16 states, 20th CBRNE Command units deploy globally to take on the world’s most dangerous weapons and hazards.

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The one-of-a-kind U.S. Army laboratory has deployed often to support military operations, including the 2014-2015 effort to contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Soldiers from 1st AML also served in seven different overseas locations to support the COVID-19 response, including U.S. military hospitals in Germany, South Korea and Japan.

I Tested Positive for Covid-19. What Does That Really Mean?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

I Tested Positive for Covid-19. What Does That Really Mean?

Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard, believes there should be more focus on the so-called cycle threshold, the number of PCR amplification cycles required to produce a positive result. A high number of cycles suggests a low viral load. This may indicate that someone is at the beginning of an infection—or the end of one. If a person tests positive but is symptom-free, and a subsequent test shows a lower viral load, then they might not need to quarantine for as long. Public health experts increasingly are debating this idea. Some believe that a more nuanced picture could help control the spread of the disease by pinpointing the most infectious people and reducing the burden of quarantine for those who are not infectious. Others warn that the cycle threshold may not be a sufficiently reliable gauge of viral load, since it is influenced by the equipment, the chemistry, and the quality of the sample in each test.