HENDERSON, N.C. — The Durham County Department of Public Health confirmed the county's first case of monkeypox Tuesday.

What You Need To Know

Mako Medical has a machine onsite in Henderson that can detect monkeypox viral specimens

The technology is made by Thermo-Fisher

Mako Medical’s director of genomics says facility could test up to 5,000 samples per day

At last check, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services listed 10 cases across the state Tuesday. 

Finding efficient ways to test for monkeypox has been a challenge. 

Lab testing for COVID-19 has been in demand since early 2020. Now, the need for testing for monkeypox is growing.

The Mako Medical facility in Henderson has the power to streamline testing for Monkeypox.

Director of Genomics Matthew Tugwell said the amount of complex in-house equipment used to process COVID-19 tests will be used for monkeypox testing.

“COVID allowed us to do the monkeypox testing, because we built out the infrastructure for COVID testing (of) up to 150,000 (samples) per day,” Tugwell said.

Rows of workers still tally novel coronavirus swabs nearly two-and-a-half years into the pandemic.

“Name, date of birth, what account they are from, what kind of test they are going to get,” Tugwell said as he walked through one of the laboratories.

Now, the focus has shifted for the director. Filling that high of a demand may not be necessary for monkeypox testing, but the need for properly identifying monkeypox specimens is still there.

Tugwell says a machine created by Thermo-Fisher, called a SpeciTRAX Sample Transfer System, can separate and detect a positive monkeypox case from other Orthopoxviruses.

“It's a significant workhorse for us we have affectionately named Trixie,” Tugwell said as he stared at the machine with a sticker of a prominent character in the cartoon show "Fairly OddParents."

Thanks to Trixie, Tugwell said they can go through 5,000 potential monkeypox samples a day.

“Basically any sample that’s in a liquid or in a tube, Trixie can handle it,” he said.

Processing massive daily amounts of COVID-19 swab samples at this Mako Medical facility in Henderson turned this lab into a training ground for the current monkeypox outbreak.

“The instrument capacity for COVID-19 testing, the equipment that we used — the biosafety hoods, RNA extraction, QPCR instrumentation to run the testing — all of that can be used for monkeypox testing as well as COVID testing. All of that capacity and infrastructure that we built out for COVID can also be utilized for monkeypox testing,” Tugwell said.

Possibly the greatest benefit will be the ability to determine onsite whether a viral specimen is monkeypox. Currently, potential cases must be sent to state labs.

Tugwell said this could be a helpful scientific tool in this state.

“I found that work extremely rewarding, because you have that direct positive impact on patients’ lives,” he said.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services listed 67 labs that can be used to positively identify monkeypox. While Mako Medical has the technology to relieve some of that burden from state health departments, that is not currently being done.