The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chike Ihekweazu, has raised an alarm that COVID-19 diagnostic test kits are being sold in black markets in the country.
Ihekweazu warned Nigerians not to be desperate to get tested during the daily briefing of the presidential taskforce on COVID-19 on Thursday.
See Also: UN reacts to killing of African Americans in US
He also asked employees to exercise caution in resumption of activities because there was massive pressure from companies who want to test their employees before reopening.
“It is important that as we open our industries, we really think about the measures that we advise everyone to carry out and leave testing for the purpose for which it is there,” he said.
“There is a growing black market on rapid diagnostics test kits in Nigeria, we have to be careful in what we buy, how we use it and how we interpret the results that they provide.”
Ihekweazu disclosed further that the private sector coalition against COVID-19 donated N47 million to help in transportation of samples to expedite testing.
“Yesterday, CACOVID finally put in N47 million into sample transportation, so the private sector is coming on as well.
CACOVID is a collection of corporate Nigerians and they put in funding going directly into the private courier firm that is supporting sample transportation across the country. So everybody is coming together to make things work,
he concluded.
According to the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, Nigeria has conducted 49,966 tests so far.