Strengthening the capacity for medical diagnoses and the response to the Covid-19 crisis in Africa

Cerba Lancet Africa (“Cerba”) is the leading pan-African biomedical player. It came about through a partnership between the French medical biology company Cerba Healthcare and its South African counterpart Lancet Laboratories. Cerba was set up in 2018 and carries out millions of medical tests every year in about a dozen Sub-Saharan African countries. These tests are useful at every stage in the patient pathway (diagnosis, treatment, follow-up) and are carried out by specialized teams in the countries concerned.

The operation by Proparco and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, involves a EUR 15m senior loan to Cerba Lancet Africa. Through this financing, Cerba will be able to accelerate the modernization of its medical analysis laboratories in Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

This financing will also allow it to open new laboratories in Africa, especially in countries where diagnosis services are limited. Cerba Lancet Africa’s development project will give priority to the poorest and most fragile countries in Africa.

The project will help develop high-quality medical laboratories in countries where health services are relatively weak. As a referral laboratory with ISO 15189 certifications, Cerba will contribute to increasing quality standards on the market and will offer a wider range of tests at local level. 

The project will also increase the number of patients and collection points. The expansion and acquisition of laboratories will make it possible to serve an additionnal 500,000 patients. Cerba will provide some 5.8 million medical tests every year and plans to increase to some 7.26 million tests by 2029. 

Finally, this project will support a total of some 1,800 jobs in the target countries over the next 5 years, including 140 jobs created at Cerba.

The project will thereby contribute to the achievement of SDG 3 (“Good health and well-being”) and SDG 8 (“Decent work and economic growth”).