Kentucky DPH Environmental Micro and Chemistry Food Surveillance and Protection.

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Project Summary: PAR-20-15 5/26/20 The main objective of the Division of Laboratory Services (DLS) at the Kentucky Department for Public Health is to maintain ISO/IEC 17025: 2017 accreditation (achieved in November 2018 for food chemistry and microbiology testing) and enhance testing capabilities by expanding the scope of current accreditation by officially adding WGS analyses for food microbiology. ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation is one of the most important standards for testing laboratories and attests to the competency and technical capability of a laboratory to perform specific tasks. The results generated are defensible to a recognized standard. In addition, accreditation supports the traceability of technical results generated by a laboratory. In the event of a large-scale terrorist activity or other large-scale events affecting foods or food products, States and Federal authorities can use laboratory test results from accredited laboratories to respond rapidly with streamlined analytical review and enforce regulatory compliance to protect the safety of the nation's food supply. DLS is the primary servicing laboratory for conducting microbiological and chemical food analyses on behalf of the KY State manufactured food regulatory program (MFRPS) in the Department for Public Health / Food Safety Branch, which has a current food safety inspection contract with FDA and is enrolled in the MFRPS. DLS has a quality management system that is in compliance with the managerial and technical requirements of the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard. DLS is a Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) Laboratory and participates in Food proficiency testing and will continue to submit laboratory results through what will become the ORAPP, as requested. The Division of Laboratory Services’s goal is to enhance laboratory activities by bringing in new testing capabilities such as Cyclospora detection for food micro and toxic metals by food chemistry. Funding of this proposal will assist the KY State MFRPS in achieving conformance with Standard 10 “Laboratory Support” of the MFRPS and will contribute to production of accurate and reliable test data, a quicker acceptance of analytical results by FDA, and other regulatory agencies for enforcement actions, surveillance purposes and response to foodborne outbreaks. In addition, DLS will continue to participate in GenomeTrackr activities and PTs as well as develop partnerships with other agencies such as the KY Department of Agriculture and the USDA for sample acquisition and testing.