H1N1 swine flu central in Utah is a cramped three-room suite of labs where microbiologist Annette Atkinson and her state health department colleagues have been putting in long hours testing hundreds of swabs for a new influenza virus.

So far, the lab has only been able to identify "suspected" cases and confirmation has been vexingly slow. But that will change once the lab gets the green light to use some 500 test kits it received Saturday from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). In an emergency move, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed CDC to distribute the kits to public health labs all over the country to expedite detection of the virus.

"We'll get faster results to our clinicians and doctors who are trying to stop the spread of this virus," said Barbara Jepson, director of the Utah health department's microbiology bureau. "Patients can be treated quicker and decisions can be made faster. Do we close a school? A timely test is valuable in making these decisions. By the same token, we are trying to help our partners at CDC."

The kits, packaged in cardboard boxes about the size of two soap bars, contain chemical reagents formulated to react with genetic material from the new influenza strain. The emerging form of the H1N1 virus apparently hatched in Mexico and has sickened more than two hundred people in the U.S., including a Park City student who recently vacationed in Mexico.

A backlog of about 3,000 samples has clogged CDC, the massive pubic health agency in Atlanta, prolonging confirmation of states' cases for seven to 10 days. Of Utah's 17 suspected cases, CDC has confirmed only one so far. Jepson expects her bureau will be able turn around samples in 24 hours, but her staff must first confirm their testing procedures work by checking their results against those of their federal counterparts.

"They want to make sure we're getting the same answers as they are," said Atkinson, who has been trained in CDC's testing procedures.

Atkinson works in the Public Health Laboratory Building on the University of Utah's health sciences campus. Her small lab, which tests for numerous viruses besides those than cause flu, is crammed with refrigerators, expensive electronics, centrifuges and boxes.

Samples flood the lab in the form of swabs taken from deep inside sick patients' noses, some 100 a day in recent weeks as pandemic concerns mount.

Technicians extract the genetic material known as RNA from the samples, then run it through an initial screening to determine whether it's a probable case of swine flu. Lab personnel combine the RNA with special reagents, then "amplify" its genetic fingerprint through a series of heating and cooling cycles. A computer program analyzes its profile and positive results appear as a clean curving line on a screen, Atkinson explained to reporters visiting the lab on Monday.

In as little as six hours, the lab will be able to confirm whether a suspected case really is H1N1 flu, Jepson said, but officials will need additional time to match the samples with actual patients and take steps to protect their identity.

"It's so fun to work in microbiology because you never know what's going to be coming at you," Jepson said. "Viruses are always changing and that's why it's important for us to do this surveillance."

Federal officials caution that a negative result does not exclude the possibility that the patient is infected with the H1N1 flu virus.