• Globalization Health · Apr 2021

    Commentary: mobile laboratories for SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics: what Europe could learn from the East African Community to assure trade in times of border closures.

    • Florian Gehre, Hakim Lagu, Emmanuel Achol, Michael Katende, Jürgen May, and Muna Affara.
    • Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany. gehre@bnitm.de.
    • Globalization Health. 2021 Apr 23; 17 (1): 49.

    BackgroundThe emergence of SARS-CoV-2 mutants might lead to European border closures, which impact on trade and result in serious economic losses. In April 2020, similar border closures were observed during the first SARS-CoV-2 wave in East Africa.Main BodySince 2017 the East African Community EAC together with the Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine BNITM established a mobile laboratory network integrated into the National Public Health Laboratories of the six Partner States for molecular diagnosis of viral haemorrhagic fevers and SARS-CoV-2. Since May 2020, the National Public Health Laboratories of Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and South Sudan deployed these mobile laboratories to their respective borders, issuing a newly developed "Electronic EAC COVID-19 Digital Certificate" to SARS-CoV-2 PCR-negative truck drivers, thus assuring regional trade.ConclusionConsidering the large financial damages of border closures, such a mobile laboratory network as demonstrated in East Africa is cost-effective, easy to implement and feasible. The East African Community mobile laboratory network could serve as a blueprint for Europe and other countries around the globe.

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