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'It's Like We're at War,' Africa CDC Pledges to Ramp Up Testing for COVID-19

Salem Solomon

   WASHINGTON - 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.

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