The Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, on Sunday said Nigeria needed to stock more of the RNA extraction kits to cater for the expansion of its COVID-19 testing capacity.
Writing on his twitter handle, @Chikwe_I, Ihekweazu, he gave specification of the test kits Nigeria was looking for and preferred manufacturers.
He said, “We’re desperately looking for more RNA (Ribonucleic Acid) extraction kits as we expand #COVID19 testing. Product: Total viral RNA extraction kits (preferably spin column and with a lysis buffer). Manufacturers: Qiagen, ThermoFischer, SeeGene, Inqaba, LifeRiver etc.”
The centre earlier said it had added two more laboratories to the existing 13 laboratories established in the country, but Ihekweazu’s tweet raised the fear that Nigeria might lack enough kits to test suspected cases for COVID-19.
During a briefing of the Presidential Task Force for COVID-19 in Abuja on Tuesday, the NCDC DG had said that the centre would increase Nigeria’s COVID-19 testing capacity to 4000 per day across the country with 2000 samples to be done per day in Lagos State.
The NCDC DG’s call for more kits came amid increasing criticisms that the centre was not responding to demands of Nigerians, who desperately sought testing.
A grandmother, Salma Ahmed had, in a video, alleged that the NCDC failed to pick her telephone calls, when she wanted to seek the agency’s assistance for her son-in-law, who later died of COVID-19 in Kano.
In the video released from her home in Abuja, Ahmed said her son-in-law was left to die from the virus in Kano after suffering neglect in the hands of the NCDC officials.
Also, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Ebu-Olu Adegboruwa had, in a statement last week, said his friend who had difficulty in breathing, was told at the Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba, Lagos to wait till next week.
When contacted on Sunday for update on the case, Adegboruwa said the friend eventually contacted the testing centre at Eti-Osa and he had been booked for testing
