US disease agency declines high-volume measles test validation, states say
Four states ask the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reconsider and publish a testing method laboratories could use during large outbreaks.
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Four states ask the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reconsider and publish a testing method laboratories could use during large outbreaks.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declined a request to validate a high-volume measles testing method, citing “other competing priorities”, according to a four-state letter reported by the Guardian on 22 October. A published test from ARUP Laboratories is among the methods the agency could validate so other public-health laboratories could use it.
California and Washington requested validation in May; the letter says the CDC took two months to refuse it. Health officials from those states, Hawaii and Oregon signed the West Coast Health Alliance letter asking CDC director Erica Schwartz to reconsider in preparation for major outbreaks.
ARUP Laboratories, a national, academic, nonprofit reference laboratory, published its measles test in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology in December, the Guardian reported on 22 October. The CDC could validate that method or another protocol—a set of laboratory procedures—to help other laboratories run diagnostic tests. No high-volume measles diagnostic test has been validated by the CDC.
There are no commercially available measles tests; laboratories develop the tests themselves, the Guardian reports. That requires planning, conducting and documenting experiments, then checking that the test is reliable. Benjamin Bradley, identified in the report as ARUP’s medical director of virology and an assistant professor of pathology at the University of Utah, said sharing protocols helps laboratories manage that burden.
Automated instruments can process many samples at once and can be faster and easier to use than manual testing, the report explains. Faster results can help officials identify and isolate infected patients sooner and trace their contacts more quickly.
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Laboratories currently rely on lower-volume measles testing, including individual polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests used to diagnose infection. During the Covid pandemic, most public-health laboratories bought equipment that allowed them to process large batches of Covid tests quickly.
One example is the Hologic Panther Fusion PCR platform, which the Guardian describes as capable of processing up to 500 tests in eight hours. That figure describes the platform’s capacity, not demonstrated performance for a CDC-validated measles test. The alliance wants a validated measles testing protocol for this equipment, published so other laboratories can use it.
Texas state laboratories developed a high-volume measles test during the west Texas outbreak in 2025, but have not distributed or published its protocol, the Guardian reports. The officials’ letter says the CDC reportedly studied that test and ARUP’s test, but the studies were neither full validations nor a comprehensive comparison.
The officials warned that, if a large outbreak occurred in their region, the lack of high-volume capacity would make diagnostic testing harder to expand, impairing patient care and public-health investigations. This was a warning about a possible outbreak constraint, not a report of testing delays or patient harm already occurring.
Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services, said the CDC was ensuring state and local health departments had support to strengthen measles detection and outbreak response. She said the agency was “prioritizing emerging technologies”. The department has not said whether the CDC plans to validate a high-volume measles test.
The alliance’s request awaits the CDC’s reconsideration: develop and validate a measles test for the Panther Fusion, then publish the procedures so other public-health laboratories can run it. The states also asked for protocols to test for other high-priority pathogens in preparation for future outbreaks.
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