NCDC Boss, Chikwe Ihekweazu Reveals Six Coronavirus Testing Centres In Nigeria

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has revealed six of its testing centers for diagnosing coronavirus infection.

Director-General of the NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, made this known in a tweet on the center’s Twitter handle on Saturday.

He said the laboratories would continue to provide diagnostic support for a defined number of states in the country.

The facilities are; the NCDC’s National Reference Laboratory (Abuja), Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (Edo), Redeemers University Nigeria (Ogun), Lagos University Teaching Hospital and Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (Lagos).

Ihekweazu said that the NCDC has extended its capacity to include the Virology Laboratory of the University College Hospital (Ibadan). He said;

“Currently, samples from cases that meet the case definition are collected by the State Epidemiology Team, and transported through a defined process funded by NCDC, from the state to one of the testing laboratories.

“The inclusion of one more laboratory will increase the capacity to detect cases in the country. NCDC Team will be in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, to set up COVID-19 testing capacity, in the existing Molecular laboratory within the state,” he said.

”Each laboratory costs about 150 million naira to build and equip initially, and millions of naira to maintain functionality.

“Our strategy is to find cases quickly, isolate, follow up with contacts and treat these cases. We are working very hard to flatten the curve in Nigeria,” he added.

We have expanded the number of labs with the capacity to test for #COVID19 to 6 with the inclusion of the Virology Laboratory of University College Hospital, Ibadan

Tomorrow, we will be in Abakaliki to set up another lab as we quickly ramp up #COVID19 testing capacity in Nigeria pic.twitter.com/jE4rXGUiNT

— NCDC (@NCDCgov) March 28, 2020