Lagos to Regulate Price Charged by Private COVID-19 Labs, Says Abayomi

Matilda Omonaiye/

The Lagos State government has disclosed plans to regulate the price that the new diagnostic laboratories accredited to conduct COVID-19 test in the state will charge for the service.

The state government had earlier today signed a memorandum of understanding with seven private labs accredited to conduct COVID-19 tests in order to boost the state’s testing capacity in the face of rising infection figures.

The labs were reportedly accredited after rigorous accreditation and validation process by the Health Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA) and the Lagos State Biobank.

The labs include: Total Medical Services, SynLab, 54 Gene, Medbury Medical Services, Biologix Medical Services, 02 Medical Services and Clina Lancent Lab.

Commissioner for health, Prof Akin Abayomi, disclosed on Twitter this evening that the decision to regulate the cost charged by the private labs was informed by the need to prevent them from exploiting members of the public.

He also said the state government was in the process of granting accreditation to more private labs to further bring down the cost chargeable for the test.

Abayomi stated this while responding to a Twitter user who asked what the government was doing to ensure that the private labs do not leverage their obvious power of monopoly to charge exorbitant prices.

In his response, the commissioner tweeted, “We are regulating the cost as the public protector and more private labs will be accredited soon as they go through the rigorous validation process set by government. This avoid monopoly.”

See tweets:

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