We need to decentralize Covid-19 testing in Africa NOW.

Every hospital in Africa needs to have the capacity to test for Covid-19. We need to implement Point of Care PCR equipment in hospitals and clinics in peri-urban and rural areas. The current model of collecting samples and sending them to central public labs was good for phase 1 of mass contact trace testing. This model is no longer sustainable moving forward. This is why:

1. Health workers have no way to tell if a patient who shows up at their hospital/clinic is infected. We need to implement a Point of Care testing solution to protect health workers. I have 2 friends who have had to close down parts of their hospitals and quarantine doctors and nurses after a patient they treated tested positive for Covid-19. We already have a shortage of health workers and cannot afford to lose more to isolation.
2. I have read stories of patients who were left to die in hospitals because health workers were scared to treat them. We can fix this by providing point of care testing equipment to hospitals so they can quickly identify and isolate cases.

Patients can show symptoms of Covid-19 without having the disease. Those patients do not need to die because health workers are afraid to become infected. We can no longer centralize testing and expect to re-open our societies.

We are not waiting any longer at mPharma. Over the next few months, we will work with Sansure Biotech to provide over 100 portable molecular workstations and 300,000 test kits to hospitals and clinics across Africa.