The Federal Government, as part of efforts to take advantage of two-week lockdown extension ordered by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), aims to conduct 4,000 COVID-19 tests every day.
The Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Chikwe Ihekweazu, who disclosed this on Tuesday during a briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja, said 2,000 tests would be conducted in Lagos, 1,000 in Abuja and 1,000 in other parts of the country.
The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said isolation centres would be established at the country’s land borders.
Buhari had on Monday extended the 14 days lockdown he ordered in the Federal Capital Territory, Lagos and Ogun states on March 29 by another two weeks.
The NCDC director general on Tuesday recalled that the President, in his speech on Monday, said the public health response to COVID-19 was dependent on ability to detect, test and admit cases as well as trace all contacts.
Ihekweazu said Nigeria had increased its laboratories for testing COVID-19 to 12, adding that the government would ensure every state had a lab.
Sample collection, now our challenge – NCDC DG
He stated, “We have achieved this largely by leveraging on the existing molecular laboratory capacity within our network across the country. We now have the capacity to test 1,500 people per day.
“The challenge right now is not laboratories’ testing capacity, but how active our public health workforce is in collecting samples from identified suspected cases and sending them to the laboratories for testing.”
“We have sufficient testing capacity of 1,500 per day, but we are not close to exhausting it every day. From today, we have to push harder. Our target following the President speech is to get to testing 2,000 per day in Lagos, 1,000 in Abuja and 1,000 for the rest of the country. This is the target we have agreed.”
Test kits to be tracked
Ihekweazu said part of the innovation being developed by the PTF was to track all test kits sent to states to ensure they were effectively utilised.
According to him, he visited Lagos during the Easter period where a new strategy was developed, stressing that the new strategy must be replicated across the country.
Sample collection centres to be established
While highlighting processes involved in testing of samples, the NCDC boss stated that it took at least 12 hours for a sample test to be completed. He added that a positive sample could take longer period.
He stated, “We are establishing clinics in Lagos where people can go and have their swabs collected through a special arrangement. They (the swabs) have to be distributed to three laboratories in Lagos and in the following morning, have to be sorted. It is a complex process, but we have managed to improve on it.
“Outside Lagos and Abuja, there are places where we have laboratories and where we have extra-complications of transportation to the laboratories. There is a courier that does that on our behalf. You cannot just collect a sample, you have to save it in a medium that saves its viability until it gets to the laboratories.”
According to him, ambulances will be sent to individuals, who test positive for the virus, to convey them to treatment centres.
signaturetv.org/punch/IJM
