Senegal’s $1 Covid-19 Testing Kit Is Capable Of Showing Results Within 10 Minutes
Senegal’s Institut Pasteur de Dakar in collaboration with Mologic, a British biotech company has developed a testing kit for effective combating of the coronavirus within a minimum time limit.
The intriguing aspect of the news of this machine is its cost per unit, given that it will cost only but a dollar while the result will be ready within (10) ten minutes of performing the test.
The test kit was modelled after the similitude of the test kit for dengue fever testing.
A twitter user simply identified as Arunma Oteh hailed the Senegalese engineers in her twitter handle @aoteh
“Well done #Senegal #Africa 4leveraging your past experience & innovative solutions in the war against #covid19. $1.00 quick diagnostic testing kits and an3D printed ventilator that costs $60.00 vs an imported one that could cost $16,000 – a great example – see Aljazeera’s Report, she said.
The updates also confirmed that the testing kit can be used at home for a simple test using the saliva or a blood sample of the individual.
Results of the test will appear in a similar fashion to that of a pregnancy test kit works, a bloodline appears to indicate the presence or absence of the COVID-19 antibody.
These testing kits will only start being available in June after trials, testing and approval.
Senegal is at the moment is administering the antimalarial drug, chloroquine to Covid-19 patients, while the government has been hailed for its innovative approach in fighting Covid-19.
The Senegalese engineers are using a 3D printing machine to reproduce more ventilators while using the only available 50 ventilators to cater for and sustain a population of 16 million people.
To import ventilators into the country would have to cost the government a whopping sum of USD16 000 per unit, however, the engineers will develop each ventilator at the sum of only USD60 and are just as effective as the imported ones, saving the country huge sum of money..
