By HOI ABC
NORMAL – Illinois State University’s governing board will decide this week whether to sign off on a multi-million dollar contract to test students on campus for the novel coronavirus until the end of this year.
At a special session Wednesday, ISU’s Board of Trustees will vote on a five-month contract in which the university would pay Reditus Laboratories up to $3.3 million, or about $110 per test.
The same Pekin-based company runs the COVID-19 testing center at the McLean County Fairgrounds, and it conducted COVID-19 testing earlier this summer for ISU athletes to take part in team practices and events.
According to our news partner HOI ABC, Reditus would perform surveillance testing for anyone not suffering COVID-19-like symptoms. Such testing is necessary to “detect transmission hot spots or characterize disease trends,” according to the staff’s report to university trustees.
The staff said Reditus can perform up to 500 tests per day at multiple on-campus locations. The university anticipates conducting approximately 1,500 tests each week from August 17 to December 31, when the contract expires.
The university said in the staff report that it pursued other avenues for testing including partnering with the University of Illinois on its new saliva-based test, but that was determined not to be feasible at this time.
According to staff, ISU recently partnered with Carle BroMenn Medical Center in Normal to conduct limited testing for students returning to campus.
Wednesday’s Board of Trustees special session, to be conducted virtually, is scheduled to start at 5 p.m.
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