Asheville, N.C. – Since early February 2021 UNC Asheville has partnered with local laboratory CommunityLab to offer a COVID-19 surveillance testing program for students each Thursday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. by appointment only at the Highsmith Student Union on campus. Surveillance testing refers to regular testing for individuals who may not be experiencing any COVID-19 symptoms and is an added safeguard to minimizing the spread of COVID-19. Testing performed is the gold-standard PCR testing for COVID-19 via nasopharyngeal swab collection and results are available within 24 hours from the Arden-based lab.
“We selected CommunityLab for our surveillance testing program because we get more personalized service with a local lab partner, including faster turn-around-time for results,” said Jay Cutspec, director of Health & Counseling at UNC Asheville. “We have enjoyed working with CommunityLab overall. Their staff have been gracious and helpful, ensuring a positive experience for our students.”
Cutspec manages the scheduling of student appointments for surveillance testing at UNC Asheville and noted there is a high demand of students wanting to test. “When I release the new appointment times each week, all the slots fill up in about an hour or so,” said Cutspec.
UNC Asheville offers free COVID-19 testing to both on-campus and off-campus students and aims to test at least 10 percent of on-campus students (about 200 students per month). UNC Asheville also offers COVID-19 testing for symptomatic students at the Health & Counseling Center on campus.
If an on-campus student tests positive, UNC Asheville has a protocol for students to isolate on-campus, and any student who tests positive receives recommendations to follow CDC guidelines. For more information, visit https://coronavirus.unca.edu/.
About CommunityLab:
CommunityLab, a division of Sanesco, specializes in molecular and diagnostic laboratory testing. CommunityLab is devoted to improving health, wellness, and quality of life for all people and communities in WNC. The development of CommunityLab and collaboration with the WNC community is driven by the targeted investment and support of Dogwood Health Trust.
Sanesco International Inc. is a global leader providing specialty, neuroendocrine laboratory testing for healthcare providers, hospital networks, reference laboratories, and research partners for over a decade. Sanesco’s high-complexity, CLIA-certified clinical laboratory has tested hundreds of thousands of patients, amassing one of the largest repositories of human stress response data. Most importantly, Sanesco is driven by its mission to improve quality of life.
About UNC Asheville:
UNC Asheville offers an education that is adaptive, affordable, and endlessly relevant as the only liberal arts and sciences campus in the University of North Carolina System. Our small class size, award-winning faculty and a nationally acclaimed undergraduate research program foster connections between curiosity and critical thinking, courage and challenge, imagination and impact, opportunity and responsibility.
Learning here expands well beyond the classroom walls. Focusing on undergraduate studies, we help students dig into learning, whether they participate in faculty-mentored research projects, undertake career-related internships, study abroad, or join service projects that make a profound impact at home and around the world. About 3,600 undergraduate students and about 330 full- and part-time faculty bring the campus alive with a genuine hunger to take on new challenges and opportunities through the more than 30 majors offered.
Surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains in one of America’s great small cities, Asheville, North Carolina, UNC Asheville offers an experience where every path leads to a new vista, where there’s room for every voice, and where the future is a frontier. For more information, please visit: www.unca.edu.
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