David Olaleye, a professor of virology at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Oyo State, on Friday, revealed that the virology department of the hospital had worked on 19 samples for coronavirus testing since it began operations on Monday.
According to him, the UCH laboratory is designated to receive samples from three states: Oyo, Ogun, and Kwara, as well as other places that surveillance officers will be able to track where they have come from.
Olaleye who disclosed this on Friday said, “We worked on 19 samples from Monday till yesterday and 10 on the way today (Friday)”
He stressed further that the results from the tests will be passed to the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the ministry of health in the respective states to ensure that the epidemiology and response center can disclose the result to the individual and enroll the contacts for monitoring.
“NCDC has a protocol that has been developed based on the original one developed in Atlanta, United States, for us in Nigeria. The training and optimization of the avian influenza laboratory all ended over last weekend and we started attending to cases on Monday.
“There is a problem with kits globally. But the genuity about what NCDC has done, which should be applauded is that NCDC developed a protocol and so no need to use test kits,” he said.
OYOINSIGHT.COM had earlier reported how the NCDC approved and gave certification to the virology center in UCH to commence testing of samples for coronavirus.
At the time of writing this report, the total number of confirmed cases by the NCDC in the country is now 232 with five deaths.
The index case in Oyo – the pacesetter State is now eight.
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