By Fatima Zahra Muhammad
ASHENEWS reports that the Nigeria Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (NCDC) on Wednesday commissioned the first Zonal Reference Laboratory in the country.
The lab, located in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State is expected to be replicated in all six geopolitical zones in the country.
These ZRLs are expected to strengthen Nigeria’s outbreak preparedness and response in the South -West, by providing a wider geographic diagnostic coverage for epidemic and epidemic-prone diseases.
According to a statement issued to journalists on Wednesday by the NCDC, the project was funded by the World Bank’s Pandemic Emergency Financing facility through the Nigeria COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Project.
“This ZRL project is one of the efforts by the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Health through the NCDC to consolidate COVID-19 investments and further enhance our outbreak preparedness and response effort as we continue to respond to infectious diseases of public health importance.
“The NCDC is mandated by law to develop a network of highly specialized reference laboratories across the nation to contribute to national health security. This is aligned with Nigeria’s obligations under International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) and recommendations from Nigeria’s 2017 Joint External Evaluation (JEE).
“The NCDC’s implementation of its tiered laboratory network is intended to establish an effective network of testing laboratories for diseases of public health importance.
The ZRLs will bring services closer to States, facilitate sample transportation, reduce turnaround time for testing and release of results, and contribute to resilience in our emergency and preparedness efforts at the subnational level.
“This newly commissioned Ekiti ZRL will strengthen diagnosis and surveillance of infectious diseases in Nigeria, with a particular focus on the six states within the South-west region: Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Lagos, and Ogun and the whole of southern Nigeria at large.
The laboratory is equipped to diagnose priority diseases as part of our Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) system,” the statement said.
