Bauchi State now has a second molecular laboratory with the establishment of an N100 million Genetic and Infectious Diseases Laboratory at the College of Medical Sciences, ATBUTH, by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).
While inspecting the laboratory, Governor, Bala Mohammed, showered praises on the Executive Chairman of the TetFUND, Prof Elias Suleiman Bogoro, for establishing the N100 million Molecular Laboratory as the second in the state, to carry out testing for the novel coronavirus.
After the routine inspection of the laboratory, the governor said that Prof Sulaiman Bogoro was one of the indigenes that are making the state proud by using his office to improve on the standard of tertiary education in the country in general and Bauchi State in particular.
An elated Bala said: “We took the first step to approach TETFUND to say please help us and they did. People like Professor Bogoro are the kind of children we want in Bauchi State and he is really one of those that we are proud of. He is doing it, not for Bauchi, but for Nigeria and you can see the effect it has made to our health system in Bauchi State and the North-East.”
He added: “The support is timely and has given us the required impetus to sharpen our capacity for health care delivery. We are grateful to all the parties involved and as a state government we will give them all the support that they require and the host community.”
Bala, who was in the company of his Chief of Staff, Dr Ladan Saliu, the Executive Chairman of the State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Rilwanu Mohammed, Commissioner for Health, Dr Aliyu Maigoro Mohammed, Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Garba Dahiru, was received by the Vice-Chancellor of ATBU, Professor Abdulaziz Mohammed and other members of his management team.
He thanked the Federal Government and the management and staff of the teaching hospital and health workers for collaboration to build the laboratory.
“I thank the NCDC for being there to give us the guidelines for best practices in terms of protocol. We are just waiting for the NCDC to come and certify all the compliance so that this place will, take off and with this, we will go a long way to achieve our desire objective of making sure that community testing for Coronavirus (COVID-19) is carried out in all nooks and cranny of the stat,e” the governor assured.
ATBU Vice-Chancellor, Professor Abdulaziz Muhammad, recalled that the Executive Secretary of TETFUND, Professor Suleiman Bogoro, approved the sum of N100 million to assist the centre and expressed appreciation to the Federal Government.
“Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University can recall this is the first time that the state government has been proactive in solving our problems as a University and we appreciate Bala and want to assure you that this laboratory is not for CONCID 19 alone but a research laboratory after COVID-19. This laboratory will continue to exist to test any disease that we come across in this state,” the VC said.
Acting Chief Medical Director of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, Dr Saidu Abubakar, said that the hospital is fully prepared to commence operations with a testing capacity of 300 suspected cases in a day.
He then called on the people of Bauchi State to take advantage of the establishment of the laboratory by coming out to be tested in order to know their COVID-19 status.