Nigerian govt to increase weekly COVID-19 testing by over 9,000

Nigeria’s weekly capacity for COVID-19 is set to increase by 9,100 following Federal Government’s readiness to repurpose the tuberculosis GeneXpert machines that have been deployed in all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) stated this in its ‘National Strategy to Scale Up Access to Coronavirus Disease Testing in Nigeria’, which was posted on its website.

According to the NCDC, the objective of planning to repurpose the tuberculosis machines were to decentralise and speed up testing across the country and strengthen national surveillance for COVID-19.

The NCDC further explained that the country has 407 GeneXpert instruments deployed in 399 health facilities across the country, for use as first-line testing for TB diagnosis.

It however noted that the United States-based Food and Drug Administration had granted the manufacturer, Cepheid, Emergency Use Authorisations for the use of the instruments and specially designed cartridge in testing for COVID-19.

“Every state of the federation including the FCT has at least five GeneXpert sites, at least one site in each state will be repurposed for COVID-19 testing”, the agency said.

The NCDC further noted that with the GeneXpert machines, each of which could test 24 samples daily, it is targeting 1,300 tests per day with ability to return test results same day, and since the NCDC conducts tests every day of the week, Nigeria could therefore increase its weekly testing by 9,100.

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“There are also available in-country two mobile laboratories equipped with two GeneXpert instruments each. These will be deployed as needed to support COVID-19 testing surge in target states.

“The planned decentralised testing using GeneXpert will enable states to test low volume samples (1–24 samples daily) with same day return of results, while bulk samples will be referred to the Central/Regional PCR Laboratories as elucidated above. This will increase the country’s testing capacity by additional 1,300 tests per day”, the NCDC document said.

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