These facilities support hundreds of sentinel (formerly level A) laboratories in local hospitals throughout the United States and can provide sophisticated confirmatory diagnosis and typing of biological agents that may be used in a bioterrorist attack or other bio-agent incident.
The LRN consists of a loose network of government labs at three levels:[1] These laboratories, found in many hospitals and local public health facilities, have the ability to rule out specific bioterrorism threat agents, to handle specimens safely, and to forward specimens to higher-level labs within the network.
These laboratories (more than 100), typically found at state health departments and at military, veterinary, agricultural, and water-testing facilities, can rule on the presence of the various biological threat agents.
These laboratories, including those at CDC and U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), can use BSL-4 practices and serve as the final authority in the evaluation of potential bioterrorism specimens.
They provide specialized reagents to lower level laboratories and have the ability to bank specimens, perform serotyping, and detect genetic recombinants and chimeras.