COVID-19 Test Kits Arrive at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Swiftly Taken to City-County Health Department
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – It was a special delivery to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, as 100 COVID-19 test kits arrived via FedEx to the Island Campus. University administrators chose to donate the test kits to the Corpus Christi – Nueces County Public Health District.
The kits are courtesy of the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory in College Station. The kits were assembled from lab supplies usually reserved for pigs, cows, and chickens at A&M’s four diagnostic labs across the state and consist of a swab, a vial with transport media to preserve the sample in the vial, and a bag.
Annette Rodriguez, Health Director for the City-County Health Department, stopped by Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on April 9 to pick up the test kits.
Each of the test kits have enough viral transport media (VTM) to be split into two test kits, effectively doubling the 100-kit donation to 200 kits, said Rodriguez. This is due to new emergency guidelines which allows for 1 ml per VTM versus the 2 ml of VTM in traditional kits.
Test kits will be used by the City-County Health Department, in their COVID-19 drive-through testing area.
