The 100th Anniversary of the Florida Department of Health’s Tampa Laboratory was a highlight of the College of Public Health’s weeklong celebration

Dr. Phil Amuso, director of the Tampa Lab, Florida Department of Health Bureau of Laboratories, speaks at the lab’s 100th Anniversary celebration. The lab has a strong partnership with the USF College of Public Health.

The USF College of Public Health celebrated National Public Health Week, April 5-11, with activities ranging from a Global Health Career Night and the college’s annual awards ceremony to student-led tours of the environmental and occupational health laboratories.

One of the highlights of the week was the celebration April 8th of the 100th anniversary of the Florida Department of Health’s Bureau of Laboratories, Tampa Branch Laboratory. Since 2001 the laboratory has operated out of the William G. (Doc) Myers Building it shares with the USF Center for Biological Defense on the university’s Tampa campus — strengthening the USF’s longstanding partnership with Florida’s public health system.

Dr. Max Salfinger (left), chief of the Florida DOH Bureau of Laboratories, with Dr. Amuso.

Many of the laboratory’s 60 employees joined public health officials from Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Tampa and elsewhere to recognize the Bureau of Laboratories, Tampa Lab, achievements in promoting, protecting and improving the health of all citizens in the region. The laboratory’s staff provides reference testing for hospitals, commercial laboratories and private clinics as well as performing testing to detect viruses, including influenza, St. Louis encephalitis, West Nile, eastern equine encephalitis, polio, rabies, herpes, smallpox and monkey pox. The Tampa lab is one of five in the state’s public health laboratory network and works in tandem with Florida’s 67 county health departments.

“The country cannot function without a strong public health system, and the public health system cannot function without strong public health laboratory services,” said Phil Amuso, PhD, director of the DOH Bureau of Laboratories, Tampa, and an alumnus of the USF College of Public Health.

Dr. Doug Holt, director of the Hillsborough County Health Department, read a proclamation from the City of Tampa recognizing the laboratory’s service to the community.

Douglas Holt, MD, director of the Hillsborough County Health Department and professor of medicine at USF Health, read a proclamation from Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio.

The proclamation read, in part, that the Bureau of Laboratories-Tampa Laboratory’s unique arrangement with the USF Center for Biological Defense “has provided students with a convenient location to perform special research and has allowed collaboration on numerous biodefense-related research projects, including the testing and detection efforts of any significant national biological risks such as the anthrax attacks in 2001 and the H1N1 influenza virus A outbreak in 2009.”

For a description of the National Public Health Week activities at USF, click here.

For National Public Health Week video, click here.

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MORE PUBLIC HEALTH WEEK PHOTOS…

L to R: USF public health students Jennifer Peregoy, Samantha Spedoske, Andrew Romaner and Jadie Dayton, officers in the Global Health Student Association, helped build a world puzzle for World Health Day April 7th.

USF medical student Jessica Goldonowitz swabs her cheek as part of the registration process for the National Marrow Donor Program. NMDP was recruiting donors on Give Life Day April 8 at the College of Public Health.

– Story by Anne DeLotto Baier, and photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications