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Covid-19 coronavirus infections have forced most African countries to keep their borders closed. Image: iStock / Gallo Images.
- The African Union and the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are promoting the mobile-based PanaBIOS platform.
- The application would allow centralizing the Covid-19 results from different facilities throughout the continent.
- May eliminate the need for travelers to be repeatedly tested for Covid-19
Two major African public bodies are promoting new technology that could connect the continent’s Covid-19 testing centers and facilitate the reopening of travel across the region.
The African Union and the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are encouraging member states to integrate the mobile device-based PanaBIOS platform that would allow for centralizing facility results across the continent. So far only Ghana is using the service.
“Ghana is being used as a pioneer,” said the West African country’s communications minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, in the capital, Accra. “The learnings from adopting the app and using the app will be shared with CDC Africa and applied by other African countries,” he said.
Most African nations have kept their borders closed since the pandemic began to spread or have reopened with strict restrictions. Some require multiple negative coronavirus tests and, in some cases, self-isolation at a designated hotel at the traveler’s expense. Ghana, which resumed international flights on Tuesday, still requires a pre-arrival and arrival test in order to enter.
PanaBIOS can eliminate the need for travelers to retest as long as they come from a country that is also registered on the platform, Preston Asante, a spokesperson, said at the Ghana launch. The implementation of the technology, developed by Koldchain, a Kenyan start-up, is being funded by AfroChampions, an organization that brings together some of the largest companies on the continent.
Reviving the economy
Reducing travel restrictions is vital to the success of an African Union-led plan to implement the world’s largest free trade zone, which will now begin in 2021 after a delay caused by the pandemic. A full deal could cover a market of more than 1.2 billion people with a combined gross domestic product of $ 2.5 trillion. All but one of the 55 countries in Africa, Eritrea, have joined the agreement.
“The reopening of entry and exit points that have been temporarily closed to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 is necessary,” the African Union said in an emailed response to questions. The bloc proposes a reopening at least a month before the trade agreement takes effect, he said.
Africa’s CDC is eager to “facilitate the movement of people while ensuring critical public health measures are implemented,” its director, John Nkengasong, said last month.
With the help of Ekow Dontoh.
