Knowledge on the Pathogenesis and New Diagnosing Techniques Approach for Low SARS-CoV-2 Testing Rates: A Case Study of Nigeria

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 (novel coronavirus responsible for coronavirus disease 2019) is a beta (β-) sub-class of the coronavirus which has caused more harm to live than expected. SARS-CoV-2 which was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020, has caused governments globally to declare and implement the “lock down” policy for its citizen, including Nigeria with a large population in Africa. The country National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) made it known the testing methods adopted by them are not effective at curtaining the large population of her citizens. Our main goal in this review is to focus on the SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis and new diagnostic techniques approaches that can be adopted in Nigeria. A total of 88,432 testing has been carried out by the NCDC, with 14,554 confirmed cases in 200 million populations. Although the SARS-CoV-2 test adopted by the NCDC has been on the molecular testing using real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and antibody tests using blood, which has many demerits. We therefore recommend the NCDC should approach new diagnostic techniques like use of saliva samples and loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP). Conclusively, when these methods are considered, testing rates will greatly improve.