The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says the country is hoping to access the recently developed testing kits by Senegal in order to boost testing for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the country.
Director General of NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, stated this on Monday during the presidential taskforce briefing on COVID-19.
“We will look into the Senegal testing kits. It is not available yet. We will continue speaking to them and make sure we have access,” Ihekweazu said.
He further disclosed that a private company had been cleared to conduct the Coronavirus test.
“We have approved a company, 54gene, to test in the private sector. We have set up the process and we hope we can continue growing our network of private labs across the country.”
Senegal’s Institut Pasteur de Dakar recently developed a COVID-19 testing kit that costs $1 and could deliver results in about 10 minutes.
It is said that the institute was able to achieve this by drawing from a wealth of experience gathered from developing vaccines and treatments for several ailments including yellow fever.
The testing kit was also said to have been developed in collaboration with Mologic, a British biotech company.
Reports however, said the Covid-19 test kits won’t be ready for distribution until June, after necessary testing must have been concluded.
The testing kit, it was gathered can be used at home for a simple test using the saliva or a blood sample of the individual. Similar to how a pregnancy test kit works, a bloodline appears to indicate the presence or absence of the COVID-19 antibody.
