The government of Lagos State has spent roughly N800 million naira to test COVID-19 patients, based on the state’s commissioner for health, Professor Akin Abayomi‘s recent comment.

According to him, Lagos state government decided to offer free tests for potential patients despite the financial toll it’s having on the state.

While briefing newsmen earlier today, he revealed that each test costs N40,000 to N50,000 per person.

And so far, the state has conducted 16,000 COVID-19 tests. Going by N50,000 per test, it means the state has spent N800,000 on COVID-19 tests alone.

“We have so far performed 16,000 COVID-19 tests in Lagos, which is much higher than anywhere else in Nigeria,” Professor. Akin Abayomi said.

“We are planning to test up to about 1,000 people per day very soon in the next month or two we are going to be ramping up our capacity to test.

“For now the government is providing testing free of charge and the government pays about N40,000 to N50,000 per test.

“But as we ramp up our testing we are going to try and use some means of subsidy for the test, either through insurance or through some contributions from donors or from development partners to help us to subsidize the test.

“For now the state government is providing COVID-19 testing free of charge and all citizens who need to be tested for covid-19 either because they are not feeling well or had a close contact can get it done free of charge at any of our covid-19 testing sites on the four laboratories,” the commissioner said.