A medical company near Orlando is offering up to 5,000 COVID-19 antibody test kits to nonprofits in the Jacksonville area.
“Even with many free COVID testing locations provided by our state and local governments, we’ve seen too many people not have the resources to be tested,” said Stan Van Meter, CEO of the Mt. Dora-based Medek Health. “Many nonprofits reached out to us for assistance and feel this method is the easiest and best way to ensure as many people as possible can be tested.”
Medek says its COVID-19 antibody test kits can show an active or past infection of COVID-19 and the company claims they are nearly 98% accurate.
“These tests are a low cost method of surveillance for any population, like a homeless shelter or a school for special-needs students,” Van Meter said. “By using the tests, organizations can catch an outbreak easily and quickly before it gets out of control.”
Tests must be administered by a licensed health care technician and Medek advises that a positive test result should immediately be followed up with a full COVID-19 PCR test for confirmation.
“I think it's important to do that to make sure that you don't have a false positive and that you make sure that you know for a fact you have COVID, and that way you know to quarantine and what the next steps could be. So it's just that additional verification to really make sure we've taken care of it,” said Ryan Mezzell, Vice President of Marketing at Medek Health.
Jacksonville area nonprofits must fill out the form at NonProfitTestKits.com by Nov. 27 to qualify for the free test kits.
Brendan Rivers can be reached at brivers@wjct.org, 904-358-6396 or on Twitter at @BrendanRivers.
