For Laboratorians

CDC’s Streptococcus Laboratory serves U.S. health departments with characterizing streptococcal isolates for outbreak support and other public health concerns. The laboratory is also very active internationally.

The laboratory offers extensive information on emm types, including

• emm types and subtypes assignment
• Blast emm and emm databases
• New emm designations
• Global emm type proportions

A protocol is also available.

Requesting support for testing GAS isolates

CDC’s Streptococcus Laboratory is available to assist with testing GAS isolates to assess strain relatedness during outbreak investigations.

All submissions to CDC for Streptococcus (Beta Hemolytic Strep) Typing require pre-approval by a CDC Infectious Diseases Laboratory point of contact (POC) and must be routed through a state public health laboratory.

To avoid a delay in testing, adhere to the following requirements:

• Send the specimens to the CDC Streptococcus Lab, attention Dr. Sopio Chochua, with the accompanying 50.34 form according to instructions provided on the Specimen Submission Form.
  • Select Streptococcus (beta hemolytic) typing as the test requested.
• Complete the 50.34 form for each specimen submission and include a specimen ID.
  • Specimens received without specimen IDs entered in the 50.34 form will not be processed for testing.

The lab has changed how it handles lab reports due to CLIA requirements. CLIA requires non-CLIA test results from the CDC Streptococcus Laboratory to be reported as non-CLIA reports without Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Currently the tests not performed under CLIA regulations include Streptococcus (Beta Hemolytic Strep) Typing CDC-10216. The mechanism to remove the PII requires the creation of a PDF using specimen ID. The lab sends the reports to the appropriate state public health laboratory manually via email. These results are intended for public health purposes only and must NOT be communicated to the patient, their care provider, or placed in the patient’s medical record. These results should NOT be used for diagnosis, treatment, or assessment of patient health or management.

Requesting support for GAS outbreaks

As always, CDC can assist in GAS outbreaks. If you need further consult, please contact GAS outbreaks (gasoutbreaks@cdc.gov).