The Federal Government of Nigeria is sourcing help from China in the fight against the dreaded Coronavirus which now has 190 confirmed cases in the country.
Minister of Health, Osage Ehanire, speaking at the daily briefing by the Presidential Taskforce on Covid-19 on Friday in Abuja disclosed that a special cargo plane would soon depart Nigeria to China to airlift the medical personnel and equipment from there.
Also, at the briefing, Chikwe Ihekweazu, Director General of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said the agency had carried out about 4,000 Coronavirus tests since the outbreak of the pandemic in Nigeria, while 6,700 contacts have so far been identified.
Ihekweazu also informed that Nigeria has scaled up its testing capacity with the activation of a new laboratory in FCT, bringing the total number of laboratories with the capacity to test for coronavirus to 8.
According to him, the Defence reference Laboratory which was activated on Friday morning, will not only support the armed forces, but everyone around the vicinity. He added that there are now three laboratories working independently in Lagos.
The DG further said government was set to activate a laboratory in Kano and other states in the north, so as to increase the number of tests carried out a day.
Ihekweazu also said the private sector is partnering with government, particularly to increase laboratories’ testing capacities.
“We have some proposals we are working on with the private sector. The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority is working with us to increase laboratories in three locations in Nigeria,” he said.
The DG however regretted that Nigeria’s testing capacity is being limited by shortage of funds, infrastructure human resources, the people trained in molecular diagnostics testing. “The human resource is a big challenge for testing,” he said.
