COVID-19: Stakeholders donate molecular testing facility to FCTA
By Taofeek Lawal, Abuja
Some stakeholders under the umbrella of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ministerial Expert Advisory Committee on COVID-19 has donated a world-class molecular diagnostic laboratory to the FCT Administration to boost fight against the pandemic and other health challenges in the nation’s capital.
Speaking at the commissioning and handover of the multi million naira laboratory project provided by the committee at the Kubwa General Hospital, FCT Minister, Mallam Muhammad Musa Bello, said it is a vital and welcome intervention in the healthcare sector.
Bello said the modern facility, fully-equipped molecular diagnostic laboratory, with the capacity of processing about blood samples per day, will boost testing for COVID-19 in the FCT. Bello however expressed gratitude to the FCT Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar for their enormous contributions to our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The committee is today bequeathing to the FCT, their legacy project, which is the donation of this molecular diagnostic laboratory here at Kubwa General Hospital. It is to their credit and great work done by our medical personnel and our entire COVID-19 response team that despite the the status of the FCT as an epicenter of COVID-19 in Nigeria, we have recorded relatively low fatalities and met our testing targets. We intend to put this laboratory to good and effective use even long after this war against covid19 is won and forgotten, which we pray will not be very long from now. We must however, not be complacent despite the low positives, we are currently witnessing as the virus is still very much around”, the Minister stated.
He urged members of the public to seize the opportunity currently provided to get vaccinated, while observing all non-pharmaceutical preventive measures already prescribed.
Handing over the facility to the FCT Minister, chairman of the Advisory Committee, Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar, expressed optimism that the laboratory will serve as a trigger for the building and equipping at least one laboratory each in the Area Councils of the FCT in the next five years.
