If you're going to catch coronavirus — as experts believe most of us are — you might as well catch it in Senegal. While delays and limited test kits have left sick Americans in the dark about their COVID-19 status, sometimes for a week or more, the West African nation is testing people and getting results back within as little as four hours, The Washington Post's Danielle Paquette reports.
Part of that is thanks to the fact that many African countries preemptively prepared for the outbreak by setting up testing capabilities as long ago as early February, Quartz reports (as of Wednesday, Senegal only has 13 confirmed cases). But Senegalese scientists are also on the forefront of testing. In partnership with the UK-based Mologic, scientists at Dakar's Pasteur Institute are helping to develop a handheld coronavirus test kit that could diagnose COVID-19 within 10 minutes. The kit, which is being authenticated by five other international research organizations and would be manufactured in Senegal, could greatly help manage the outbreak, CNN reports.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Festival of Sport announces exciting media partnership with The Week JuniorFestival of Sport, the UK’s premier family-friendly sports festival, has officially teamed up with The Week Junior as its exclusive media partner.
-
Bergerac: 'darker' reboot of the eighties crime dramaThe Week Recommends Irish actor Damien Molony takes over from John Nettles as the Jersey detective
-
Pamela Anderson is 'transfixing' in The Last ShowgirlThe Week Recommends 'Quietly touching' film about a Las Vegas showgirl facing the end of her career
-
Crafting emporium Joann is going out of businessSpeed Read The 82-year-old fabric and crafts store will be closing all 800 of its stores
-
What's Jeff Bezos' net worth?In Depth The Amazon tycoon and third richest person in the world made his fortune pioneering online retail
-
Trump's China tariffs start after Canada, Mexico pausesSpeed Read The president paused his tariffs on America's closest neighbors after speaking to their leaders, but his import tax on Chinese goods has taken effect
-
Chinese AI chatbot's rise slams US tech stocksSpeed Read The sudden popularity of a new AI chatbot from Chinese startup DeepSeek has sent U.S. tech stocks tumbling
-
US port strike averted with tentative labor dealSpeed Read The strike could have shut down major ports from Texas to Maine
-
Biden expected to block Japanese bid for US SteelSpeed Read The president is blocking the $14 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan's Nippon Steel, citing national security concerns
-
Judges block $25B Kroger-Albertsons mergerSpeed Read The proposed merger between the supermarket giants was stalled when judges overseeing two separate cases blocked the deal
-
Rupert Murdoch loses 'Succession' court battleSpeed Read Murdoch wanted to give full control of his empire to son Lachlan, ensuring Fox News' right-wing editorial slant
