Chronicle Editor
The African Union Commission and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) have launched a new initiative, the Partnership to Accelerate Covid-19 Testing (PACT): Trace, Test & Track (CDC-T3). The partnership is to facilitate implementation of the Africa Joint Continental Strategy for Covid-19, endorsed by African Ministers of Health on February 22, 2020 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and approved by the Bureau of the Assembly of the African Union Heads of State and Government on 26 March 2020.
Driven by the principles of cooperation, coordination, collaboration and communication, the goal of the continental strategy is to prevent severe illness and death from Covid-19 infection in African Union Member States and minimise social disruption and the economic consequences of Covid-19.
PACT aims to strengthen capacity to test for Covid-19 across Africa, with emphasis on countries that have only minimal capacity. This will ensure that at least 10 million Africans, who would have not been tested, get tested in the next six months.
PACT will help meet the need of the Heads of State and Government for an Africa-led and Africa-owned response. It will focus on:
1. Establishment of warehousing and distribution hubs across Africa, in partnership with organisations like the World Food Programme and Ethiopian Airlines.
This model has been used to successfully distribute medical supplies and donations from the Abiy Ahmed/Jack Ma Foundation Initiative to Reverse Covid-19 of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and the Founder of Alibaba, respectively;
2. Coordination of pooled procurement of diagnostics and other medical commodities for distribution across the continent;
3. Support for the testing of one million Africans in 10 weeks;
4. Support for the deployment of one million community healthcare workers to support contact tracing; and
5. Standardisation and deployment of common technology platforms to boost public trust in testing data, epidemiological models and critical health forecasting techniques as part of the economic recovery and re-opening agenda. — Source: Africa CDC
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