COVID-19: Nigeria increases testing capacity as total infections hit 37, 801

Wednesday, July 22, 2020 8:49 am

Coronavirus testing in Nigeria

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC has said that there were currently 58 laboratories in 30 states with the capacity to test for COVID-19 in the country.

This, the Centre said, was an increase from 12 functional testing facilities in eight states, with a capacity to conduct a minimum of 1,500 tests per day in Lagos and 1,000 tests per day in FCT and other states as of April 14, 2020.

The Centre said this as it announced on Tuesday that the country has recorded 576 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total infections to 37, 801 and inclusion of five new laboratories in its Molecular Laboratory Network: Edo Specialist Hospital, Benin, ATBU Teaching Hospital, Bauchi, Rivers Indorama Company Molecular Lab, State Specialist Hospital, Amachara, Abia, University of Abuja, Gwagwalada GeneXpert .

According to NCDC, the Federal Ministry of Health through the agency had prioritised testing as one of the key strategies to the COVID-19 response in Nigeria. In order to contain the outbreak, the Government of Nigeria plans to rapidly scale diagnostic testing to cover all 36 States plus the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The NCDC said it would work with donors, partners and the private sector to rapidly scale testing capacity to every state.

“As of April 14, 2020, Nigeria has 12 functional testing facilities in eight states, with a capacity to conduct a minimum of 1,500 tests per day in Lagos and 1,000 tests per day in FCT and other states.

“As the epidemic intensifies, the NCDC has been using a multi-phase approach to scale up testing to all 36 states of the federation,” it said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that as of July 21, the new cases Percentage Change stood at 0.025 per cent, Recovery Percentage Change, 0.509 per cent, Death Percentage Change, -0.667 per cent, Recovery Rate, 41.472 per cent and Death Rate, 2.13 per cent.

The centre also said that four deaths were recorded in the country from the pandemic on Tuesday.

It said that the 576 new cases were reported from 22 states.

The NCDC said till date, out of the 37,801 confirmed cases, 15,677 cases have been treated and discharged.

It added that a total of 805 deaths were recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

The agency said that new cases were reported in Lagos (88), Kwara (87), FCT (82), Plateau (62), Ondo (39), Enugu (28), Oyo (26), Taraba (24), Kaduna (20), Ebonyi (20), Edo (17), Cross River (16), Kano (14), Rivers (11), Ogun (10), Delta (9), Nasarawa (8), Osun (8), Katsina (3), Imo (2), Kebbi (1), and Borno (1).

According to it, a multi-sectoral national emergency operations centre (EOC), activated at Level three, continues to coordinate the national response activities.

(NAN)