Dakar, Senegal - Researchers this week began validation trials on a COVID-19 diagnostic test that can be done at home and produce results in as little as 10 minutes - all for $1.

The plan is to manufacture the tests in Senegal and the United Kingdom and, if the validation testing meets regulatory standards, they could be distributed across Africa as early as June.

"Our focus is to provide tests to the African continent," Amadou Sall, director of the Pasteur Institute in Dakar, told Al Jazeera.

Sall and his team of researchers in the Senegalese capital, who previously worked on vaccines for yellow fever and dengue, developed the prototype for the diagnostic test in partnership with Mologic, a British biotech company founded by the inventor of a widely used pregnancy test.

Once ready, the tests will be produced in the UK and at a new Dakar-based facility managed by DiaTropix, a subsidiary of the Pasteur Institute that focuses on infectious disease testing.

According to Sall, the Dakar site will have an initial capacity to produce up to four million tests annually. The developers are also in early-stage talks for local manufacturing sites to be set up in other parts of the continent.

"When COVID-19 hit, we knew from the beginning that Africa would be disproportionally affected," Joe Fitchett, the medical director of Mologic told Al Jazeera. "With a test like this, you can detect [the virus] very quickly on any part of the continent and then avoid transmission."

To detect as many people as possible, Fitchett says the test will be sold at cost-price - which is approximately $1 - thanks to grant support from the UK government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

"The point is to keep it to the bottom," Fitchett said, adding they would work with suppliers to keep the price as low as possible.

source: aljazeera