FG Approves Private COVID-19 Labs

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chikwe Ihekweazu, has announced the federal government’s approval of private Coronavirus (COVID-19) testing laboratories.

Ihekweazu said the federal government would release guidelines for the establishment of private Coronavirus (COVID-19) laboratories in the country tonight.

The move, according to Ihekweazu, was aimed at complementing the federal government’s efforts to scale up testing for COVID-19 in the country.

The NCDC DG disclosed this during the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja on Monday.

“We have now come up with guidelines for integrating the private sector into COVID-19 testing.

“So, every private sector lab that wants to join can pick up the COVID-19 testing guidelines that we will upload on our website tonight, look through it and define what they need to do and we will support them through that process.

“This is one bit of the changes we continue to make in our response to the pandemic,” said Ihekweazu..

THE WHISTLER reports that NCDC’s activation of more government-owned testing laboratories had helped to increase the country’s COVID-19 testing capacity, leading to the discovery of more infections from the virus.

As of Sunday night, Nigeria’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 had risen to 4,399, out of which 778 had recovered while 148 people had died from complications related to the virus.