COVID-19: Nigeria to see higher testing numbers as Lagos taps 7 private labs

Nigeria is expected to record a milestone in its testing capacity for coronavirus as the Lagos State government last week onboarded seven private laboratories to help upscale testing, a key factor in the fight against the novel virus.

Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial city, has been the state with the highest number of confirmed cornavirus cases in the country, with the government fighting tooth and nail to contain the spread of the virus.

But for the state’s low testing capacity as a percentage of its huge population, not much has been achieved in its fight against the pandemic, with the state still recording daily infection of over 100 cases.

With a population that is over 20 million, the state has managed to achieve a test that is slightly over 35,027. That’s over eight times less when compared with the over 288,465 total tests conducted by Ghana, a country with roughly similar size as Lagos, data from Worldometer show.

After much ado, the state government has finally adhered to recommendations from both health and economic experts who have continued to put the government on its toes on the need to include private sector players to assist in ramping up testing.

For the experts, increasing testing would help the government to quickly identify and isolate those infected with the virus to avoid spread to other members of the community.

On June 26, about four months after the index case of the virus was reported, the state government announced the inclusion of seven private laboratories to add to its four public laboratories which it has used from the outset to test for the virus.

In a document seen by Businessday which originated from the office of the state’s health commissioner, the government named the seven private laboratories as Total Medical Services, Synlab, 54 Gene, Medbury Medical Services, 02 Medical Services, and Clina Lancent Laboratories.

These seven private labs which are expected to com

mence testing immediately would complement the staterun Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH, CHAZVY), Lagos State Biobank (LBS), Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIRM), and the Central Public Health Laboratories (CPHL), all testing centres used by the state.

According to the Lagos State government, the decision to include the private sector to ramp up testing follows the continuous attempts to open up various aspects of its economy, which makes it imperative that COVId-19testsarewidelyavailableto membersofthepublic.however, it noted that its COVID-19 response would remain a centrally managed emergency response by the state government.

“Including the private sector will definitely be a game changer for Nigeria as the capacity to test will increase significantly as well as also setting the benchmark for the commercialisation of the testing process,” said Debo Odulana, a health management consultant and founder/ceo, Doctoora E-health Ltd.

Odulana said the state having the private sector come on board, serves as a good case study even for the rest of the country.

“If people are able to pay for testing, especially corporates, it will increase the revenue capacity coming from the process which will in turn guarantee sustainability of the system,” he said.

Despite commendations on the inclusion of private players to assist in the ramping up of testing, health and economic experts still have cause for concern, especially after documents from the state’s health commissioner, Akin Abayomi, showed some frightening statistics in the state’s fight against the virus.

The first was that one in every four persons living in Lagos may have already been infected with the virus.

At 27 percent, the state’s infection rate is higher than the 14 percent in Texas, where the government had placed the state on national alert.

Second was the fact that there has been a massive uptick in infection rate following the ease of lockdown.