ND health officials using new equipment to test for swine flu

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BISMARCK - State health officials have new lab equipment to test for swine flu.

Mike Trythall is an immunology supervisor with the state Health Department. He says the computerized testing device, valued at about $80,000, was put into action last week. The state got it through a public health discount.

It means North Dakota no longer will have to send its swine flu samples to a federal laboratory in Atlanta for confirmation. Trythall says that will cut nearly two weeks off the turnaround time for test results.

North Dakota has 33 confirmed cases of swine flu so far.

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