CDC assures Kilili H1N1 test kits on the way

News Release
July 2, 2009

CDC assures Kilili H1N1 test kits on the way

Saipan, MP – NMI Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan announced today that he has received word from the Center for Disease Control that lab kits are being shipped to the Naval Hospital on Guam for testing suspected cases of H1N1, swine flu, in the Northern Marianas. The Naval Hospital is the closest facility able to run the diagnostic tests.

“Given that we have already seen the H1N1 virus reach Guam,” said Kilili, “the public needs to know that federal officials are prepared to respond to any occurrence in the Northern Mariana Islands, as well.”

Sablan contacted Dr. Thomas Frieden, the Director of the CDC, in May to stress the need for the reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction kits to be available to public health officials in the Northern Marianas. At the time CDC had reported that the kits were being distributed to the 50 States and Puerto Rico – and even to some foreign countries – but not to NMI and other US Pacific insular areas.

“I ask you to remedy that gap immediately,” Kilili wrote to Frieden.

In his letter of July 1 to the NMI Congressman Frieden explained that there is no medical laboratory in the CNMI capable of performing the complicated RT-PCR test. The test, which amplifies the DNA of a virus in order to make it identifiable, requires repeated cycles of heating and cooling and can take two weeks to complete.

But, Frieden wrote, “CDC has facilitated arrangements with the Naval Hospital in Guam, which is the nearest qualified facility for patient diagnostics…, to administer testing for patients in CNMI.” And, he added, “these kits are currently being shipped to Guam.”

Sablan says he “would prefer that the test kits for the NMI were already at the Naval Hospital. But, at least, CDC is plugging this gap in the defense against H1N1.”

In addition to the test kits, the Center for Disease Control has also widely distributed two antiviral drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, which are used to treat people who get the H1N1 flu. CDC reported to Sablan in mid-May that 11,345 courses of the drugs have been set aside for the Northern Marianas and that 25%, enough to treat about 3,000 cases, had already been delivered to the islands.

CDC has also been engaged in discussion with local health officials regarding measures such as quarantine and isolation and public communication and education so that the US islands are well-prepared for the H1N1 virus.

The Los Angeles Times reported on June 25 that CDC computer simulations indicate that it is likely 1 million people in the United States have been infected with the H1N1 virus. 127 deaths have been reported.