The Federal Government has activated 22 molecular diagnostic laboratories for testing coronavirus across the six geopolitical zones of the country.

This is in line with the Presidential mandate to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to engage in aggressive contact tracing and testing.



It has also set an ambitious target of testing 2 million in another three months.

As at the time of this report, the NCDC has tested 22,492 persons for COVID-19.

The Director-General of the NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, who made these known in Abuja during the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.

He said that although there are 21 laboratories in the country, the number will increase to 22 with Port Harcourt testing laboratory joining the list.

According to him: “We are managing a network of 22 laboratories nationwide now for COVID-19 testing, they are 21 but by the end of today it will be 22 when we add Port Harcourt.



“We don’t own these labs. We only own the National Reference Laboratory in Abuja. We have been working very hard to prepare the rest to do all these testing.

“We have 36 plus one states, therefore, when results are generated from the lab

Source:http://c.newsnow.co.uk/A/1030795738?-395:737


Meanwhile:b]GET UNIQUE LOGO, FLIERS, INFOGRAPHICS,BUSINESS CARD,BROCHURES, INVITATION CARD, WEB BANNERS, for your business and start ups. Click on this to Get me on WhatsApp : 0805__262__9795[/b]

Meanwhile what?

This is good news. Hope more labs are onlined soon to help increase testing capacity, and aid in painting a more complete and accurate picture of the spread of this disease across the country.

Audio laboratories

I don't get it. Government can't own testing centres or what What about the ones in Government universities and teaching hospitals . Are we really serious about this thing?

SirWarlock:
I don't get it. Government can't own testing centres or what What about the ones in Government universities and teaching hospitals . Are we really serious about this thing?

My guess is many of the universities and teaching hospitals remain too ill-equipped to handle the need.

I honestly don't trust the government to adequately run it's own labs so I welcome this news of privately owned labs coming in to help build capacity as far as testing is concerned. Maybe now, Nigerian can process more than an average of 300 tests per day.