Explaining it’s effort towards testing COVID-19 suspected cases in Nigeria, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) at a Presidential Task Force Briefing revealed it has developed a new testing strategy that will be made available to everyone soon.
The Director General of NCDC, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu explained that to defeat the pandemic a lot has to be put in place, which the agency is making sure of through the use of validated technology to facilitate activities. He also noted that the public response to testing to the virus is rather low.
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The DG said “We aim to increase access to testing as new testing modalities also become available. The success of this strategy is dependent on our ability to leverage on the existing infrastructure for testing but also to rapidly include testing muds that are available through other disease programmes.”
“First is to expand our existing laboratory networks as we have been doing and announcing regularly. Secondly is to use labs that have been previously used for HIV testing. And yesterday we got our first consignment of reagent for those tests, that piece of equipment. We will be trying it out at the National reference Lab and then scaling up very rapidly”.
“The third strategy is to use the point of testing generally called mass testing in their aesthetics. So we have had our challenges.
“Like with every other thing, it is not always the first person off the block that wins the race. So we have quietly put our heads down, worked with our partners, developed our strategies, made our plans and now we are ready to scale testing in Nigeria,”.
Speaking further, the NCDC Boss noted that the national strategy to scale up COVID-19 testing in Nigeria is ready as he explained that offers have been presented to the agency by individuals and corporate associations concerning testing of COVID-19 cases.
While directing the public to the COVID-19 website covid19.ncdc.gov.ng Dr. Ihekweazu asked anyone with useful information or advice could present them in form of a proposal.
