The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has said there was community transmission of Coronavirus in Lagos and Kano States.
The Director-General of NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, made this known at the daily media briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Monday in Abuja.
Ihekweazu said 23 molecular laboratories had been activated within the agency’s network of laboratories to scale up testing.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the 23 laboratories in the NCDC’s network are the NCDC National Reference Laboratory, Federal Capital Territory and the Defence Reference Laboratory, FCT.
The Virology Laboratory, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos State; Biosafety Level-3 Laboratory, Lagos; and the laboratory at Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital in Edo State.
There are some others at the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Lagos; Virology Laboratory, University College Hospital, Oyo State; and the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki in Ebonyi State.
The African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases, Osun State; National Veterinary Research Institute, Vom, Plateau State; Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano State; and the DNA Laboratory, Kaduna State.
Others are also located in the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, Borno State; Centre for Advanced Medical Research and Training, Borno State; and Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto State.
Some are also sited at the African Centre of Excellence for Neglected Tropical Diseases and Forensic Biotechnology, Zaria, Kaduna State; and Centre for Infectious Disease Research, Bayero University Kano.
There are also the 54gene Mobile Laboratory, Ogun; 54gene Mobile Laboratory, Lagos State; 54gene Mobile Laboratory, Kano State; and Mobile laboratory, Delta State in the agency’s network, to scale up testing for COVID-19.
The NCDC laboratories are also located in the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital; Rivers State University Teaching Hospital Satellite Molecular Laboratory; and University of Benin Teaching Hospital.
Ihekweazu said the NCDC would be integrating private sector laboratories into its laboratory architecture with guidelines to be published on Monday night.
“Private laboratories that want to join the network should download it and see what is required; we will be available to support them through the process,” he said.
He said Nigeria needed a National Laboratory Information Management System for real-time access to laboratory results, instead of having to send results from one place to another.
Ihekweazu said: “Instead of having different Labs for diagnosing COVID, HIV, Measles, TB, etc, Nigeria needs to have a National Network of Molecular Laboratories that can diagnose multiple infections.
“After this pandemic Nigeria will not be the same in terms of Lab diagnostics capacity.”