Reuters reveals how donors bet a U.S. firm could transform disease testing in Africa, then COVID-19 hit

Starting in 2006, donor organizations put their faith in California-based diagnostics firm Cepheid’s equipment to help tackle deadly diseases in countries that lack medical laboratories and skilled personnel to run them. To date, donors have committed more than $730 million to the development and distribution of GeneXpert systems and their testing cartridges mainly in Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia. In a Special Report, Reuters revealed how a year on from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of Congo’s GeneXpert machines are gathering dust. The reason: a shortage of proprietary chemical cartridges, also made by Cepheid, that are needed to conduct COVID-19 tests. Each test uses one cartridge. Health experts say Africa is being priced out of the market. Buyers in the United States and Canada are paying $30 to $50 for each cartridge.