Many countries in resource limited settings have high HIV malaria tuberculosis hepatitis and or sexually transmitted infection STI burdens ince the start of the COVID 19 pandemic scaling up testing has been a critical component to identify isolate and trace suspected cases as efforts to reduce transmission and care for patients early Through conducting over 10 million tests countries in Africa have identified nearly 2 000 000 COVID 19 cases In many countries there has been heavy reliance on the laboratory systems built and developed by HIV and TB programs