Introducing Project STELLAR
04 March 2022
Diagnostics play an essential role in the fight against COVID-19 for effective patient management, infection prevention and control, and disease surveillance. In order to support countries and help them to achieve WHO and Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) targets for COVID-19 diagnostics, the Global Fund has introduced Project STELLAR – Scaling-up Testing and Strengthening Lab Systems.
As one of the centrally managed limited investment (CMLI) projects under the COVID-19 Response Mechanism (C19RM), Project STELLAR has been created to support a group of African countries in maximizing the impact of C19RM resources, to rapidly scale up COVID-19 testing and galvanize longer term strengthening of laboratory systems.
With an initial investment of US$9.86 million, the project will cover the following interventions that should be implemented by December 2023:
- improve national diagnostic governance;
- scale up and increase coverage for COVID-19 testing and surveillance;
- and strengthen data management.
The project will soon be launching in Botswana, Burkina Faso, Chad, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia.
For more information, please review this briefing note [ download in English | Français ] .