Senegal: $1-COVID-19 Test Undergoes Trials
A new cheap and effective way to test for coronavirus (COVID-19) is currently under development in Senegal, and could prove to be critical to turning the tide against the virus in sub-Saharan Africa.
The COVID-19 testing kit – which can determine if a person has the virus or not in less than 10 minutes – is being developed by scientists at DiaTropix, a biomedical research facility located in the Senegalese capital of Dakar.
Amadou Sall, the director of the institute, recently told the media that it is hoped that the kit will cost no more than an American dollar.
He said: “This is a very simple technology, like a pregnancy test that you can use everywhere at the community level, which is important for Africa.”
Much like the aforementioned test, the kit will require no electricity and uses a small amount of blood to test for COVID-19 antibodies, with the results showing up as a coloured strip on the plastic unit.
Between 10 and 15 million kits are expected to be distributed via health organisations such as the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention by February 2021, according to Dr Sall.
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