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Labs refine methods after bad tests
Summer breakout of pertussis was other illnesses, CDC confirms
Herald Staff Writer
To prevent contamination of specimens, health-care workers need to wear gloves when taking swabs, and surfaces should be regularly cleaned, according to the CDC findings.
The CDC said a combination of factors led to the false-positive results at local health-care facilities, but proper handling of test specimens was emphasized, according to a statement from the San Juan Basin Health Department.
"Local providers have already implemented these recommendations," said Bari Wagner, a communicable disease nurse at the health department.
Wagner met with at least one health-care office Wednesday to discuss the CDC's findings.
Health Department Director Lynn Westberg said her department did not perform any of the pertussis tests, and said she was not sure which health facilities around town were involved.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment sent four CDC representatives to the county to look into a rash of pertussis diagnoses between May and August after La Plata County posted nearly 40 percent of Colorado's pertussis cases during that time.
Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, typically strikes in winter, and it looks slightly different than the 55 cases displayed in La Plata County this summer.
The investigators contacted three or four local health-care facilities to ask that their patients with new cough-related illnesses take part in the investigation. Participation was voluntary.
The CDC's final report was released to the San Juan Basin Health Department on Oct. 27. The recommendations were released by the health department on Wednesday.
Officials were concerned in part because the summer outbreak was hitting children older than typical patients and those vaccinated against the disease. Many of those patients were displaying symptoms not usually associated with pertussis.
Pertussis can be deadly in infants and spreads easily.
The CDC's final report noted that interviews with patients and lab tests suggested to them that pertussis was not the cause of the cough illness this summer, but other respiratory infections were detected.
"It is also thought that false positive test results most likely occurred," the report says.
The final report states that pertussis is difficult to diagnose by doctors or laboratory tests, and it is recommended that doctors treat patients with respiratory infections quickly, rather than waiting for results. It states that, in the summer 2009 outbreak, antibiotics given to patients were effective against the other bacteria.
But the outbreak last winter, Westberg told the San Juan Board of Health, was a legitimate one.
gandrews@durangoherald.com
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