Nigeria creates low-cost rapid COVID-19 test
Nigerian scientists have developed a rapid COVID-19 test kit will help the country to ramp up testing.
Once approved, the molecular diagnostic test kits take
about 40 minutes to give a result, and similar to the gold standard PCR test.
Director
at the country’s Institute of Medical
Research, Professor Babatunde Salako,
said the innovation was borne out of
the global sample testing challenges being experienced, in addition to the
local challenge. He explained that
Nigeria was unable to procure enough kits from China for its population of over
200 million.
The
diagnostic tests kits will retail
for less than US$25 and utilises a mobile machine for samples that can be
operated by low-skilled personnel with minimal training.
Salako believes the rapid diagnostic test kits will
prove useful where a preliminary screening test result is required and are especially
useful in resource-limited settings.
