By Damien Gayle (now); Simon Murphy and Helen Sullivan(earlier)
Cases pass 2 million; WHO chief hopes US will remain a ‘friend’; almost 700 test positive on French aircraft carrier. Follow the latest updates
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11.42am BST
More than 1 million coronavirus tests will be rolled out in Africa from next week to address a gap in assessing the number of cases on the continent, the head of the African Union’s health body has said.
In an online briefing to journalists on Thursday, John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control, said maybe 15million tests would be required across Africa in the next three months, the Associated Press reported.
#COVID2019 update (9 am EAT 16 April 2020). 52 @_AfricanUnion Member States reporting 17247 cases, 910 deaths, and 3546 recoveries pic.twitter.com/M4SnSq06AP
11.27am BST
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a US-designated terrorist organisation, claims to have invented a device that can detect the presence of coronavirus at a distance of 100 metres, thus transforming the chances of flushing the invisible virus into the open, and ending the pandemic, writes Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor.
The IRGC, subject to intense US sanctions and seen by Washington as the source of instability across the Middle East, unveiled the device earlier this week at a ceremony hosted by the IRGC commander Maj Gen Hossein Salami.
This device does not require blood transfusions and operates remotely and intelligently, i.e. it is used for mass screening and fully detects infected surfaces and people who are infected.
This is an amazing scientific phenomenon, and it has been tested in various hospitals, and it has answered more than 80% of its accuracy, and it will be a very good basis for any kind of virus.
Source: Coronavirus live news: Trump casts doubt on China death toll as IMF issues Asia warning
