As the World continue the battle to contain and prevent further spread of the dreaded novel Coronavirus with over 1.3 million total confirmed cases and over 74,000 deaths recorded globally, a Medical Laboratory Scientist, a renowned Virologist, Public Health Epidemiologist and Lecturer with Nasarawa State University Keffi (NSUK) Dr. Ishaku Akyala has called on the Nigerian Government to look inward for remedies to COVID-19.

He said with the world struggling and overstretching their human, scientific and financial resources to address the COVID-19 pandemic which he described as a global health emergency, there is need for the government to look inward to address the scourge locally.

While responding on the efficacy of the test kits donated by Chinese Billionare, Jack Ma and the national outcry that greeted the humanitarian gesture, Dr. Akyala posited that there is need for quality control and assessment to be carried out on the kits to find out the sensitivity and specificity of the rapid diagnostic kits.

While commending the government of Nigeria and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for the proactive measures put in place to contain and prevent spread of the virus, Dr. Akyala express optimism that rapid diagnostic kids can be produced locally.

“Developing a rapid diagnostic kit is not rocket science. Actually, we have a lot of human resources. We have a lot of virologists and medical laboratory scientists that can develop the rapid test kits. This is quite key.

“And I am quite happy that we have been having positive samples. So it is just for us to harvest certain antigens and antibodies from these blood samples and come up with our own domestic rapid diagnostic kits. Time has come for us to be able to look inward, to tap from the expertise of our human resources back home to be able to come up with a very valid rapid diagnostic kit, that should be able to have a very high sensitivity” Dr. Ishaku Akyala posited.

Dr Ishaku Akyala also gave his opinion on the controversy ignited by two French doctors who suggested that some clinical trials of vaccines should be first conducted in Africa.

He said: “I want to believe that they have tendered an apology. But it also behoves on us as a continent to begin to look inward.

“Actually, their suggestion of doing clinical trial is not for a new product. It is the BCG that is mostly used for tuberculosis which is not being used in Europe. It is mostly used over here. But I think they have tendered their apology. Africa is not a testing ground for most of these products.

Dr. Akyala also said it behoves on Nigeria to standardize its products. That for every product that will go through a clinical trial, it has to be evaluated.

“It is a kind of multi-disciplinary approach to the clinical trial because a lot of people are involved in it. I want to thank Professor Adebayor for coming up with a multi-disciplinary approach in the UNILAG Consult. Likewise in the clinical trial, it is a multi-disciplinary approach. You have a lot of pharmacists that are involved. You have a lot of public health Clinicians. You have Epidemiologists, you have people that look at the side effects. You even have health economists that look at the economic components of this clinical trial.”

Dr Akyala said such localized efforts will greatly help Nigeria and the continent at large, in the battle against the COVID-19.

He said Nigeria has what it takes in terms of human resources to develop rapid diagnostic kits and other items needed to fight COVID-19 pandemic.
He said what is required is support to the available human resources.

Dr. Akyala made these known while speaking on Channels TV COVID-19 Programme on Monday 6th April, 2020.

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COVID-19: Nigeria Possesses Human Resources to Develop Diagnostic Kits – Ishaku Akyala, Ph.D