JOHANNESBURG – More than 1 million coronavirus tests will be rolled out starting next week in Africa to address the “big gap” in assessing the true number of cases on the continent, the head of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. “Maybe 15 million tests” will be required in Africa over the next three months, John Nkengasong said.
The new initiative to dramatically accelerate testing comes as the continent of 1.3 billion people braces for its turn in the pandemic that has rolled from China to Europe and the U.S.
and now beyond. Experts have said Africa is weeks behind Europe and the U.S. but the rise in cases has looked alarmingly similar.