The Addis-Ababa based Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDCP), says this is all part of efforts to understand the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak on the continent.

“Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco are the first set of countries that committed to it,” says John Nkengasong, head of the ACDCP.

Western governments are using antibody tests to find out how many of their citizens have been infected, in the hope that will help them reopen their economies, Reuters reports.

Africa has so far conducted 9.4 million coronavirus tests, a 10% increase over last week, according to Nkengasong.

Africa is clearly under-testing, however, for obvious reasons.

Africa has recorded more than a million cases of COVID-19 and 24,113 deaths, as of Thursday, August 13, 2020.

Nkengasong says 25 African countries have maintained full border closures while 23 are imposing testing at entry points.

Nigeria has reported 47, 743 COVID-19 cases, 33, 943 recoveries and 956 deaths as of August 12, 2020.