A White House official told The Hill that the federal government has shipped more than 250,000 rapid COVID-19 tests to historically Black colleges and universities.
The tests were sent to 41 schools, and the government plans to deliver another 300,000 to 65 more of the schools by next week.
"We think it’s very, very important to equip HBCUs," Adm. Brett Giroir, MD, HHS assistant secretary for health,said, according to The Hill. "It is a fact, except for a few very high-tech globally competitive universities, that many of these are small, rural, and do not have the kind of laboratory capacity that other universities do have."
"We know they’ve been underserved historically, and we just want to support them," he added.
Historically Black colleges and universities also tend to have faculty older than average and are therefore at greater risk of contracting COVID-19, The Hill reported.
The government's goal is to send each school enough kits to test between 5 percent and 10 percent of students weekly, and the supply will be replenished as often as necessary, Dr. Giroir said.