A new Testing Centre has been activated in the commercial city of Onitsha, to add to three other centres already operational in Anambra State.The three others are two in Nnewi and one in Awka and the latest has taken the number of such centres to a total of four. The latest is located at the Onitsha General Hospital.The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Dr Ebele Chukwu confirmed, while being interviewed by an Information Officer from the state Ministry of Information attached to the Onitsha South Local Government Area (LGA).According to the CMD the Genexpert Machine was purchased for the facility by the Anambra State Government.
Mrs Nkiru Stellamaris Onyekwelu, one of the Principal Medical Laboratory Scientist assigned to COVID-19 pandemic team, said that the training lasted a whole day.The expert said that all the preventive measures had been passed on to them; in future the Genexpert Machine had already started working since Aug. 8.The first test run on it comprised 24 blood samples out of which four of the samples tested positive; the second day had seven samples, out of which only one tested positive.The tests are run at night time, starting from 8pm to 5am in order to reduce the rate of spread.
Again after the tests, they will autoclave all they used in order to destroy the bacteria on it before discarding into dustbins.The Genexpert Machine is also used for testing for Tuberculosis (TB) and the TB tests are carried out in the day time.’’she confirmed that as at Aug. 13, not less than 80 samples had already been brought to them from different parts of the state.Onyekwelu expressed her gratitude to Anambra State Government for the efforts so far to contain the virus.
