Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora, Minister of State, Health, has expressed fear of a possible increase in Coronavirus infections following the resumption of schools and business activities in the country. Mamora, during the 67th joint national briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Tuesday in Abuja, urged Nigerians to adhere strictly to prevention protocols to avoid a surge in cases.
He said that there was a need for the country to scale up surveillance and review its response plan in order to integrate new ways of dealing with the disease.
He said that the number of active cases had continued to drop, and promised that the Federal Government would continue to provide quality care for all infected persons irrespective of their location.
He said the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), has developed a molecular test technique capable of producing results for COVID-19 in less than 40 minutes.
“It is the SARS-COV-2 Isothermal Molecular Assay (SIMA), which can be performed by low skilled personnel with minimum training.
“It is cheaper, and can be deployed for point of care detection and surveillance,” he said.
Mamora said that the technique, which was developed by Dr Chika Onwuamah, would be deployed for use as soon as it is validated for specificity and sensitivity by the relevant agencies. He commended the NIMR for the breakthrough, and expressed the Federal Government’s appreciation to the FATE Philanthropy Coalition for COVID-19 (FPCC), for its support towards the realisation of the project.
“As a government, we shall continue to support every genuine initiative towards strengthening our response plan,” he said.
