The project at the custom-built DiaTropix facility is a collaboration between British biotech firm Mologic and Senegal's renowned Institut Pasteur de Dakar.

Some two million kits are expected to be produced per year and will be distributed directly across the continent, according to industry website DevEx.

On Wednesday, the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.

It has spread to 114 countries across the world from China in just over three months, infected 118,000 people and killed more than 4,200.

So far, 12 African countries have reported outbreaks with 112 cases in total and two deaths.