A&M VET LAB WOULD LIKE TO INCREASE COVID-19 TESTING

  

Brazos Valley health care providers are utilizing the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory to help increase COVID-19 testing.

Director of the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory Dr. Bruce Akey says they have one of the highest testing capabilities across the state, running thousands of tests on animals each year.

Since Monday, hundreds of COVID-19 samples have been processed in the lab.

Akey says, "It's kind of starting out small but we have much more capacity than what's being utilized right now,"  and that last year, the veterinary school performed about 900,000 tests in the system.

He says more than 64,000 of those use the same method to test for COVID-19.

Despite the high demand, since they're not licensed in human testing, local health care providers are the only ones able to conduct the testing.

Akey says his team could process as many as 1,800 tests a day at the College Station lab if the Department of Health and Human Services would make changes to those regulations during the pandemic.