The new virus that has spread across China has yet to be confirmed in Africa, but some health workers on the ground warn they are not ready to handle an outbreak.
Global health authorities are increasingly worried about the threat as African countries race to take precautions. Hundreds of travelers are arriving daily from China into airports across Africa. But the effort has been complicated by a critical shortage of testing kits and by common illnesses that display similar symptoms.
Africa is now home to an estimated 1 million Chinese. It also has regions with some of the world's weakest systems for detecting and treating disease.
As the Washington Post reports, there are only six labs across the continent of Africa that can test for coronavirus. This in a continent with 1.2 Billion people. Last month, when a suspected case emerged in Ivory Coast, doctors had to send the patient's sample to Paris to be tested.