Posted on: Tue 06-10-2020

Nigerian scientists have developed faster and cheaper test kits for COVID-19.

Director-General, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Babatunde Salako said the kits could give results in less than 40 minutes and were cheaper than other PCR tests.

He, however, described the detection rate of the new test kits as lower than that of PCR tests, but also effective in COVID-19 testing.

Salako said the kit would cost less than $25 and that samples could be analyzed using a mobile machine that could be operated by low-skilled personnel with little training.

He said mass production of the kits would commence once the Nigeria Center for Disease Control, the Medical

Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria and other regulatory authorities validated it.

He said the kits would help in testing people in rural areas.

“We saw the need for more testing outfits, especially one that can give results in a short time because hospitals were refusing to treat patients without Covid-19 results. The machine we use is not a common PCR one,” he said.

Source: dailytrust

---

---