Beyond the Pandemic: Creating Change In Primary Healthcare Diagnostics Across Africa

Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and Communicable Diseases (CDs) are still a major challenge, especially in Africa. They represent 29.8% and 63.3% of the disease burden in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Cardiovascular diseases are the main cause of the NCD burden, and diarrhoea, lower respiratory and infectious diseases are the main causes of CDs in SSA. The current COVID-19 pandemic has given a huge focus on testing for COVID-19 which has resulted in negligence and delays in diagnosing other illnesses on the continent. This is evident especially for Tuberculosis (TB) whereby the number of tests done have declined by 40%, according to World Health Organization (WHO). There is an urgent need to transform the testing landscape of other diseases, apart from COVID-19, especially in Africa.