The Nigeria Centre for Diseases Control (NCDC) has disclosed
that modifying GeneXpert instruments will be part of their new testing strategy
for COVID-19.
According to the NCDC, the machines are being used in
various states,“as first line testing for tuberculosis diagnosis.”
They will now be adopted with specially designed cartridges
recently approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration.
In the new strategy published on Friday, NCDC said it is
targeting an additional 1,300 tests daily through this approach.
The agency said: “As part of this strategy, therefore, and
given that every state of the Federation including the FCT has at least 5 GeneXpert
sites, at least one GeneXpert site in each state will be repurposed for
COVID-19 testing, to decentralize testing to all states.
“Each of the GeneXpert instruments in the country has
4-testing modules with testing capacity of about 24 samples per day. There are
also available in the country two mobile laboratories equipped with 2 GeneXpert
instruments each. These will be deployed as needed to support COVID-19 testing
surge in target states.”
It was reported last month, that there were are about
400 GeneXpert machines across Nigeria.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, also confirmed
that the country would be ordering for over 100,000 cartridges of the GeneXpert
machine through the Global Fund facility through the Country Coordinating
Mechanism (CCM).
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