The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, has announced 20 new cases of Coronavirus infection in Lagos, FCT and Kaduna States.
Writing on its Twitter handle, the NCDC said: “Twenty new cases of #COVID19 have been reported in Nigeria; 13 in Lagos, 4 in FCT, 2 in Kaduna and 1 in Oyo State As at 09:00 pm 30th March there are 131 confirmed cases of #COVID19 reported in Nigeria with 2 deaths.”
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation, WHO, said: “there are 3,956 confirmed COVID-19 cases across 46 countries on the African continent with a total of 248 recoveries and 111 deaths reported.”
Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, the Director-General of NCDC, said that the centre was working hard to expand its testing capacity for COVID19 pandemic in the country.
Mr Ihekweazu said that currently there were six molecular functional laboratories in the country with the capacity to test for COVID19 and the Lassa fever outbreak.
“We aim to scale up to 13 laboratories in the next three weeks. In progress are: Abakaliki, Maiduguri, Kano, Sokoto, Port-Harcourt, Jos and Kaduna State,” he said.
Mr Ihekweazu noted that the laboratories would assist other response activities, thereby reducing the number of deaths.
The NCDC director-general said that the laboratories would also provide diagnostic support for a number of states in the country.
He noted that it would be critical to reducing turnaround time between identifying a suspected case and confirmation.
Mr Ihekweazu, however, disclosed that no Rapid Diagnostic Test, RDT kit for the COVID19 disease validated and approved for sale.
