UPDATE 1-Africa urged to test more as coronavirus cases exceed 500,000

(Adds details on hospitals, vaccine trials, latest cases)
By George Obulutsa
NAIROBI, July 9 (Reuters) - African countries must carry out
more coronavirus testing and make people use masks, a regional
disease control body said on Thursday as cases topped half a
million in the continent.
New cases in Africa were up 24% over the past week, with
data from governments and the World Health Organization showing
it had 512,499 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 11,930 deaths.
"The pandemic is gaining full momentum," John Nkengasong,
head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), told a virtual news briefing from Addis Ababa.
Nkengasong said African countries, many of which do not have
reliable data, must adopt an aggressive approach to encourage
the wearing of face masks and ramp up testing and tracing.
"This will save lives and save (the) economy."
Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, and Algeria account for
71% of infections on the continent, Nkengasong said.
Some governments have been reluctant to acknowledge
epidemics or to expose crumbling health systems to outside
scrutiny, while others are either too poor or conflict-ridden to
carry out significant testing. Nkengasong said it was inevitable that as cases rise,
hospitals will become overwhelmed.
"That is something that is happening already. We will
continue to see it as the pandemic expands," he added.
Although many have also started gradually easing lockdowns
to reopen hard-hit economies, governments are conscious that
opening up too quickly could lead to a spike in new cases.
The African Union Commission said on Thursday it had
launched a consortium for vaccine clinical trials to be headed
by the Africa CDC, which aimed to secure more than 10 late stage
vaccine clinical trials as early as possible.
South Africa and Egypt are already running human trials for
a potential vaccine.