TRIALS to develop a $1 covid-19 testing kit that produces results in less than 10 minutes are under way in Senegal. If it works, the test could be a vital tool in sub-Saharan Africa.

Researchers at DiaTropix, an infectious disease testing facility run by the Pasteur Institute in Dakar, are working alongside UK-based company Mologic to manufacture the diagnostic kits.

The prototype is similar to a home pregnancy kit and can be used either to detect current infections through saliva antigens or previous infections by blood antibodies. The institute says it could be rolled out next month if the trials show it works well enough.

Tunisian engineers have created a web-based platform that scans lung X-rays and evaluates whether patients are likely to be suffering from the novel coronavirus.

While it's not the first initiative of its kind in the world, its creators say it is the first to be openly available. And though not a diagnostic tool, the technology provides a "90 percent" reliable indication of the probability of infection, they add.

Teachers and students at the Tunisian engineering and technology institute INSAT have been developing the platform—COVID-19 Exam Ct/XR images by AI—since mid-March, with the support of German development agency GIZ, the Italian Society of Medical Radiology and US tech giant IBM.