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Nigeria develops own kit to test for COVID-19

Published

4 years ago

September 30, 2020

In order to improve its testing capacity for COVID-19, the Nigerian government has developed a molecular test kit named the SARS-COV-2 Isothermal Molecular Assay (SIMA).

The minister of state for health, Olorunnimbe Mamora, made this known at the bi-weekly Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 briefing on Tuesday..

Mr Mamora said the test kit developed by the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) can produce results in less than 40 minutes.

This is faster as compared to the Reverse Transcription- Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) which is currently the main source of testing in the country. This method of testing takes several hours to produce results.

“The Nigeria Institute of Medical Research has developed a molecular test for COVID-19 that can give results 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,” Mr Mamora said.

He also said the kit is ten times cheaper than PCR and can be deployed for point of care detection and surveillance.

Nigeria is still struggling to ramp up COVID-19 testing mainly due to lack of adequate equipment and reagents needed to carry out the PCR test.

Tests to diagnose viral infections are key to controlling the pandemic, but Nigeria, like many other African countries, could not make any locally and was importing the kits.