Coronavirus: President Buhari Says Nigeria Raising Tests Capacity To 1500 Daily
President Muhammadu Buhari, has said that the country is increasing its tests capacity to 1500 daily.
Buhari made the statement on Monday during a national broadcast where he extended the lockdown in Lagos, Ogun and Abuja by 14 days.
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According to him, “To date, we have identified 92% of all identified contacts while doubling the number of testing laboratories in the country and raising our testing capacity to 1,500 tests per day.”
Despite the improved test capacity, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had said in the early hours of Monday via tweet that it had tested 5000 sampled to date.
“A total of 323 cases of COVID19 have been confirmed out of over 5000 tests conducted in Nigeria,” the NCDC said.
Recall that THE WHISTLER last week reported that the minister of health, Osagie Ehanire, said the country had tested 5000 samples from the index case recorded in February 27.
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Nigeria has a population of approximately 200 million people, while Lagos State, the economic hub of Nigeria is the epicentre of the pandemic having approximately 20 million population.
The State has 189 positive cases, while the country has 343 in total.
Experts believe the tests conducted in the country was too low for the population.
South Africa has conducted over 60 thousand tests as of Monday, while it is testing at a rate of nearly 5,000 a day, according to South African Health Minister, Zweli Mkhize.
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