LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The Southern Nevada Health District broke ground Wednesday morning on a 12,600-square-foot expansion at the Southern Nevada Public Health Lab in downtown Las Vegas.
The facility currently provides suspect bioterrorism agent analysis, testing on public laboratory matters like foodborne outbreak investigations, and surveillance of infectious and communicable diseases.
Dr. Horng-Yuan Kan, laboratory director for the Public Health Lab, says they conducted nearly 500,000 tests during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new expansion will allow the Health District to support local and neighboring counties, as well as improve pandemic preparedness in the future.
Dr. Kan says the lab simply needs more space to better serve our rapidly growing Las Vegas community.
"We will use this new facility to expand our test capacity," Kan said. "We can also increase the turnaround time for the testing."
Southern Nevada Health District officials say that, in addition to the in-house testing improving turnaround time, it will also reduce costs to the community. The new expansion will feature new labs, including ones for microbiology and molecular biology.
The estimated opening timeline for the expansion is 14 months.
