The Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria (MLSCN) has said that no COVID-19 rapid Test Kit has been approved for use in Nigeria.
A rapid test kit is used to perform a quick test, especially for preliminary or emergency medical screening.
The Registrar of the council, Tosan Erhabor, disclosed this on Saturday while giving a progress report on pre-market validation of SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) rapid test kits at the organisation’s headquarters in Abuja.
Erhabor said 11 in-vitro diagnostics were received by the organisation for validation following its advert placement in national dailies in March requesting for submission of COVID-19 test kits by manufacturers or their sales representatives.
He said of the 11 in-vitro diagnostics, one was a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) based kit, nine were rapid test kits (two antigene and seven antibody based kits) and aViral Transport Medium based kit were received for validation at the council’s Public Health In-Vitro Diagnostics Control Laboratory , Yaba, Lagos.
He said out of the seven antibody based rapid test kits, only four met validation inclusion criteria, and all the four rapid test kits did not meet the expected performance characteristics and specificity to qualify for deployment for testing in disease surveillance and routine diagnosis.
He added that the kits, however, fulfilled the requirement to perform laboratory test without need of equipment and were able to produce results in less than 20 minutes.
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