COVID-19: NCDC approves private lab for test in Edo
The National Centre for Disease Control has approved Lahor Research Laboratories and Medical Centre, a private medical laboratory in Benin City, Edo, for screening and confirmation of COVID -19.
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This was disclosed by the Managing Director of the centre, Prof. Dennis Agbonlahor, in an interview with the Newsmen in Benin on Thursday.
Agbonlahor, a renowned professor of Medical Laboratory Science, blamed the inadequate number of molecular laboratories for the high cases recorded in Nigeria in 2020 when COVID-19 broke out.
He said that Nigeria could only boost two molecular laboratories that could confirm the virus at the time the pandemic began to spread across the country.
The managing director, however, noted that the laboratories had risen to about 140 due to the private sector investment.
“Coincidentally, 23 years ago when I delivered my inaugural lecture, I predicted that there would be a super virus that would shake the world and that I did not see any laboratory around to confirm this, considering my experience with Lassa fever.
“A classmate of mine died of Lassa fever when it first broke out and we did not know that it was the disease; five out of a family of six died from it.
“So, I advised the government then to set up molecular laboratories. Even though the government heard, it, however, did not take action.
“So in 2020, when the disease spread to Nigeria, we began to run helter-skelter to establish molecular laboratories. If the government had responded that time, we wouldn’t have had that high number,” he said.
The medical researcher, who noted that private investment in the health sector was critical to its development, said that his centre could now screen travellers going in and out of the country.
Besides the COVID-19 screening, Agbonlahor said that his laboratory also runs various screenings as well as paternity and maternity links, with the capacity to identify various viruses with different characteristics.
MTO/Punch