The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has distanced itself from rumors of alleged extortion through the Nigeria International Travel Portal (NITP), COVID-19 testing pre- and post- arrival in the country.
This was contained in a statement signed by the Director General, NCDC, Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa.
TheFact Nigeria gathered that the disclaimer became necessary following several complaints recorded on the NCDC official twitter handle.
According to Adetifa, the NITP was developed by the private sector and is managed by Nigerians in the public sector as one of several measures introduced to limit the risk of importation and spread of COVID-19 in the country.
He said, despite challenges in the functionalities of the site, mostly related to payments using foreign cards, they have continued to work extremely hard on its improvement.
The NCDC Boss explained: “While the NITP site is hosted on NCDC’s domain, all funds for testing purposes are paid through the bank to the accredited private laboratories.
“NO FUNDS from private testing are received by NCDC. COVID-19 testing in government laboratories remains free of charge for public health purposes.
“Testing for personal purposes such as travel are paid for by individuals to be conducted in private laboratories”, he said.
In a recent development, the Presidential Steering Committee on Covid-19 has reviewed the international travel guidelines to exclude fully vaccinated travelers coming into the country from taking the PCR test pre-arrival. This, they said will be effective as from Monday 4th April, 2022.
