The Southeast and Northeast have the lowest number of molecular diagnostic testing laboratories for COVID-19 in the country, an investigation by The Nation has shown.
The two geo-political zones have three laboratories each as against Southwestโs nine; Southsouthโs six; Northwestโs eight and Northcentralโs four.
States like Kogi in the Northcentral; Cross River in Southsouth and Abia in Southeast that have been in the news over their testing capacities or number of cases, do not have a single testing laboratory.
On Tuesday, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced the activation of three additional laboratories in Oyo, Akwa Ibom and Jigawa states.
The activation of laboratories in states like Kwara, Gombe, Ekiti, Ondo, and Abia is in progress, a development that would bring the total number of laboratories with capacity to test for COVID-19 in the country to 33.
The Director-General of the NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, has continued to lament that the agencyโs network of laboratories across the country have a combined testing capacity of only 200,000.
Giving account of progress made in the last 100 days of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country, the NCDC said in a statement on June 6 that prior to the confirmation of the first case, it โsupported four laboratories within its molecular laboratory network to activate testing for COVID-19.โ
It explained that its โgoal was to expand to at least 10 more laboratories by the end of June, leveraging on Gene-Xpert capacity for Tuberculosis diagnosis.โ
