It couldn't have come at a better time two months later and the coronavirus pandemic reached the Horn of Africa.

Dinny runs Mehdi Park Diagnostics with five other doctors who pulled $1 million to buy equipment way.

So there was a dire need for a lab in Somalia because tests were sent to labs abroad.

Way we proposed UN established this lab instead of opening a hospital.

Hospitals in the battle scarred city used to have to wait weeks for blood test results, but can now go to the lab to test for conditions including HIV and hepatitis.

But as the Somali government has acknowledged, its in the fight against co vid 19 that Mehdi Park has made its most obvious impact.

Until July, it was the only private lab in the city testing for the virus.

But since then it's technicians have trained government health workers.

Many Park has also arranged import pipelines for re agents needed in testing in a country that has been plagued by conflict since 1991 there were fears that Covert 19 could site through the population, but that has not happened.

The Health Ministry has recorded 4229 infections on 107 deaths, though with large swathes of the country inaccessible due to fighting, it's likely to be on under count.

Nevertheless, the virus appears to have failed to gain a foothold in the capital on that to some degree, maybe down to a group of doctors with a dream.