On July 11, 2022, Mayo Clinic Laboratories began testing for monkeypox using CDC’s orthopoxvirus test, which detects most non-smallpox related orthopoxviruses, including monkeypox virus.
“The ability of commercial laboratories to test for monkeypox is an important pillar in our comprehensive strategy to combat this disease,” said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, M.D., M.P.H. “This will not only increase testing capacity but also make it more convenient for providers and patients to access tests by using existing provider-to-laboratory networks.”
Mayo Clinic Laboratories will offer this testing at its Mayo Clinic’s Division of Clinical Microbiology laboratories in Rochester, Minnesota. Patients can access testing through Mayo Clinic health care professionals and will soon be able to access testing through health care professionals who use Mayo Clinic Laboratories as their reference laboratory. Mayo Clinic Laboratories expects to be able to perform up to 10,000 tests per week, which will continue to increase the current capacity provided through CDC’s Laboratory Response Network (LRN) and Labcorp, which began testing last week.
On June 22, HHS announced that five commercial laboratory companies would soon begin offering monkeypox testing. Since then, CDC has shipped the tests to the laboratories and their employees have been trained on their administration, among other steps.
Anyone with a rash that looks like monkeypox should talk to their healthcare provider about whether they need to get tested, even if they don’t think they had contact with someone who has monkeypox.The public will not be able to go to a Mayo Clinic laboratory and submit a specimen. Mayo Clinic Laboratories will use electronic laboratory reporting to report results to jurisdictions as outlined in the CDC reporting guidance.
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