By Olasunkanmi Akoni

The Lagos State Government has disclosed that it has spent at least N800 million in conducting 16,000 COVID-19 tests in the state.The state’s Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi stated this on Thursday while addressing newsmen on COVID-19 weekly situation report, held at Press Centre, Alausa Secretariat, in Ikeja, Lagos.Abayomi, while responding to questions from the newsmen, said each COVID-19 test cost between N40,000 to N50,000, while 16,000 tests have been conducted so far fully all expenses paid by the state government.According to him, “We have so far performed 16,000 COVID-19 tests in Lagos, which is much higher than anywhere else in Nigeria.“We are planning to test up to about 1,000 people per day very soon in the next monthor two we are going to be ramping up our capacity to test.“For now the government is providing testing free of charge and the government pays about N40,000 to N50,000 per test.“But as we ramp up our testing we are going to try and use some means of subsidy for the test, either through insurance or through some contributions from donors or from development partnersto help us to subsidise the test.“For now the state government is providing COVID-19 testing free of charge and all citizens who need to be tested for COVID-19 either because they are not feeling well or had a close contact can get it done free of charge at any of our COVID-19 testing sites on the four laboratories,” the commissioner said.

ALSO READ:COVID-19: Lagos slashes 2020 budget by N248bn

He added that the state government was in the process of conducting clinical trial on hydroxychloroquine and “with the solidaritytrial the state is participating in, two months from now we (Lagos) should get information on the drug either as preventive or cure.”Abayomi added that the government has listed some of the centres where the hydroxychloroquine trials would be conducted, with consideration for various dietary supplements that can boost or improve the immune system to resist the virus.According to him, the spike in confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Lagos was due to theincrease in its testing capacity.“The state government has decentralised sample collection centres with about 20 sample collection sites across the metropolis,” he stated.Abayomi also stated that in order to ramp up testing, the state government has concluded plans to integrate the concept of home based care of COVID 19, even as he urged residents to be available for test, and warned against stigmatisation of COVID-19 patients.As part of preventive measures against the spread of the virus, the commissioner urged citizens to always use standard facemasks in the public always, and in the event of exhibiting any symptom, they should quickly, present themselves early for treatment.Abayomi who attributed most of the recorded death cases to late reports, noted that though Lagos and Kano have the same demographic, Lagos was recording more cases of COVID-19 because it was doing more testing than Kano.“While Lagos has four testing laboratories running for almost three months now and doing three shifts, Kano has just one laboratory which is yet to properly kick off because of some initial teething problems,” the commissioner said.

Vanguard News Nigeria.

Amadiohaaaa...where are you??

If I type wetin dey my mind they fit slap me so make I just use smile cover am.

They should have asked us to pay for it naa?? Why are they paying for us , please let's pay for ourselves biko. I will pay for all the people in my community. Useless government....

Now I believe that this NONSENSE is a scam in this country.

Imagine a big for nothing country like this has only carried out about 35k tests Since February!
In UK, they sometimes carry out about 120k tests in a day. Even Ghana is done up to 200k tests so far.
Now back to the topic.

It will never be well with whoever come out to say this rubbish.
VERY effective Test kits that costs not more than 10 dollars are everywhere in the market and this useless GREEDY old fools can say this!?

Difficult to believe

hope this is not fake news.
if he made such statement, then it's now official that covid 19 pandemic is now the new fraud scheme.
what are you spending 40k for a simple test ?
then the vaccine could become 1milla.

dejt4u:
Difficult to believe

Not only difficult to believe but also a fallacy. Don't mind them, apart from the cost of securing molecular machine(s) been used for the test, a kit of #50000 can test more than 100 samples.

I am molecularly trained too.

Nwanyiogwashi:
By Olasunkanmi Akoni

The Lagos State Government has disclosed that it has spent at least N800 million in conducting 16,000 COVID-19 tests in the state.The state’s Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi stated this on Thursday while addressing newsmen on COVID-19 weekly situation report, held at Press Centre, Alausa Secretariat, in Ikeja, Lagos.Abayomi, while responding to questions from the newsmen, said each COVID-19 test cost between N40,000 to N50,000, while 16,000 tests have been conducted so far fully all expenses paid by the state government.According to him, “We have so far performed 16,000 COVID-19 tests in Lagos, which is much higher than anywhere else in Nigeria.“We are planning to test up to about 1,000 people per day very soon in the next monthor two we are going to be ramping up our capacity to test.“For now the government is providing testing free of charge and the government pays about N40,000 to N50,000 per test.“But as we ramp up our testing we are going to try and use some means of subsidy for the test, either through insurance or through some contributions from donors or from development partnersto help us to subsidise the test.“For now the state government is providing COVID-19 testing free of charge and all citizens who need to be tested for COVID-19 either because they are not feeling well or had a close contact can get it done free of charge at any of our COVID-19 testing sites on the four laboratories,” the commissioner said.

ALSO READ:COVID-19: Lagos slashes 2020 budget by N248bn

He added that the state government was in the process of conducting clinical trial on hydroxychloroquine and “with the solidaritytrial the state is participating in, two months from now we (Lagos) should get information on the drug either as preventive or cure.”Abayomi added that the government has listed some of the centres where the hydroxychloroquine trials would be conducted, with consideration for various dietary supplements that can boost or improve the immune system to resist the virus.According to him, the spike in confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Lagos was due to theincrease in its testing capacity.“The state government has decentralised sample collection centres with about 20 sample collection sites across the metropolis,” he stated.Abayomi also stated that in order to ramp up testing, the state government has concluded plans to integrate the concept of home based care of COVID 19, even as he urged residents to be available for test, and warned against stigmatisation of COVID-19 patients.As part of preventive measures against the spread of the virus, the commissioner urged citizens to always use standard facemasks in the public always, and in the event of exhibiting any symptom, they should quickly, present themselves early for treatment.Abayomi who attributed most of the recorded death cases to late reports, noted that though Lagos and Kano have the same demographic, Lagos was recording more cases of COVID-19 because it was doing more testing than Kano.“While Lagos has four testing laboratories running for almost three months now and doing three shifts, Kano has just one laboratory which is yet to properly kick off because of some initial teething problems,” the commissioner said.

Vanguard News Nigeria.

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