Coronavirus Testing Will Remain Free For Lagosians – Lagos

The Lagos State Government has come out to say that coronavirus testing for residents will remain free of charge.

Lagos State’s Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Gbenga Omotoso revealed this in a recent statement today.

According to him, every report saying otherwise is far from true and should be immediately ignored.

He added that Lagos State residents should do all they can to advantage of the free service anytime they feel unwell or when they come in contact with an infected person.

His words, ”The state would like to reassure the general public that testing is still free at all the COVID-19 public testing laboratories for all Lagos residents.

”Residents are enjoined to take advantage of this service if they feel unwell or feel they have had close contact with an infected person.”

”This is part of the testing strategy of the state to increase the accessibility of testing facilities to the organised private and corporate sector who wish to test for various reasons.

”For the avoidance of doubt it is necessary to reiterate to members of the public that testing remains free of charge at all public testing laboratories.”

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Coronaviruses are a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that can be mild, such as some cases of the common cold (among other possible causes, predominantly rhinoviruses), and others that can be lethal, such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Symptoms in other species vary: in chickens, they cause an upper respiratory tract disease, while in cows and pigs they cause diarrhea. There are yet to be vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.

Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria. They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases, the largest among known RNA viruses. The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “halo”, which refers to the characteristic appearance reminiscent of a crown or a solar corona around the virions (virus particles) when viewed under two-dimensional transmission electron microscopy, due to the surface covering in club-shaped protein spikes.

Human coronaviruses were first discovered in the late 1960s. The earliest ones discovered were an infectious bronchitis virus in chickens and two in human patients with the common cold (later named human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43). Other members of this family have since been identified, including SARS-CoV in 2003, HCoV NL63 in 2004, HKU1 in 2005, MERS-CoV in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 (formerly known as 2019-nCoV) in 2019. Most of these have involved serious respiratory tract infections.