$13.9M public health lab expansion opens

32-year-old county facility doubles its size, modernizes

Riverside County’s public health laboratory is now twice as big and more modern following a $13.9 million expansion project.

A ribbon-cutting for the expansion, which broke ground in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic, took place in October. The work added about 5,000 square feet to the laboratory and modernized a facility built in 1989.

The lab is part of a complex of county buildings in the 4000 block of County Circle Drive in Riverside that houses the Department of Public Social Services and the environmental health, behavioral health and public health departments.

Riverside University

Health System’s expanded lab has more room for staff and the ability to test and analyze samples that previously had to be sent elsewhere for analysis. West Nile virus, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases that pose a public health risk can be tested at the lab. It’s also been used for COVID-19 samples, said Jose Arballo Jr., a public health spokesperson.

Besides fighting COVID-19, the Public Health Department also tries to prevent the spread of other communicable diseases among the county’s 2.4 million residents.

PHOTOS BY WATCHARA PHOMICINDA — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Brianna Anderson, a public health microbiologist, uses a microscope to check a stool specimen for parasites at the newly expanded public health lab in the Health Administration Building in Riverside on Wednesday.

Gina Douville, a public health microbiology supervisor, holds a specimen bag containing a bat that tested negative for rabies at the newly expanded public health lab.

Anthony Martinez, a public health microbiologist, checks a freezer where patients’ COVID-19 specimens are stored at about minus 70Celsius at the newly expanded public health lab.