Africa CDC to Ramp Up Testing for COVID-19

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As many African countries reopen, the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urges widespread testing as the best way to avoid a surge in new cases of coronavirus.

Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa CDC, said that to have a reasonably accurate picture of how the disease is spreading, Africa needs about 15 million tests, or enough to test about 1% of the population. To date, only 1.8 million people have been tested continentwide.

“If we did not know our pandemic, we cannot fight the pandemic,” Nkengasong told VOA via Skype from his office in Addis Ababa. “It’s like we're at war. If you do not know your enemy, you can’t fight the enemy.”

In order to bridge the testing gap, the Africa CDC has created the Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing. The partnership will establish a platform for African countries to pool resources in order to buy diagnostic tools available on the international market. Nkengasong hopes the platform will go live in about a week.