Kano COVID-19 test centre remains closed

The COVID-19 test centre in Kano state as of Sunday evening was still not operational, Daily Trust reports.

A source close to the state’s COVID-19 task force committee told Daily Trust that most of the samples collected were taken to Abuja for testing.

Attempts to get officials of the committee to comment on the status of the test centre at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH), however, proved abortive.

It would be recalled that the centre stopped its operation last week Wednesday with the Director of Infectious Disease Research Centre of the AKTH, Professor Isa Abubakar Sadiq, stating that the suspension was temporary in order to fumigate the centre.

There have been unconfirmed reports that the centre had been closed because some of the workers mishandled a sample, which invariably contaminated the entire centre.

The Deputy Director, Medical Laboratory Service in-charge of the NCDC/AKTH COVID-19 Centre, Nasiru Magaji, had, however, said the centre would be reopened on Friday last week.

Meanwhile, the Vice Chancellor, Bayero University Kano, Professor Muhammad Yahuza Bello has said the university is set to launch its COVID-19 test centre to complement the effort of government in containing the spread of the new coronavirus disease in the state.

The VC disclosed this on Sunday at a press briefing at the Kano State government house on COVID-19.

He said the test centre, which had gotten approval of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), would become operational in the next 10 days.

He said the NCDC officials had inspected the laboratories and equipment at the University’s Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Control and had given approval for the centre to run tests for coronavirus.

He said over N50 million has been expended for the establishment of the facility.

“In Bayero University we have been making arrangements to see if we will be able to address this particular problem.

“Even if we cannot do all the testing, we are working on establishing a testing centre and our centre for infectious disease research in the university that has that capacity.

“We hope that in the next one week, maximum of 10 days, we are going to open a testing centre that will have the capacity of testing at least an average of 180 persons per day as against the 40 that the current centre does.

“To do that, we have moved some equipment that were in other centres of the university. The PRC machines that we have in other places have been moved over to the centre.

“The bio-safety cabinets from other places have also been moved in.

“We are spending over N50m to put the centre up-to-date and also to purchase testing equipment.

“For the beginning, the order that we had now placed is at least 1500 testing kits that will last for at least 10 days when we start, but after that, we are to purchase more testing kits because the testing is most important,” the VC stated.