An epidemiological overview of the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in African Union member nations
Introduction Despite the fragile health systems in Africa, the continent remained less impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with no clear understanding of the distributional patterns across the countries and regions. This study assessed the distribution patterns of COVID-19 infection and the associate...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
European Publishing
2023-04-01
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| Series: | Population Medicine |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.populationmedicine.eu/An-epidemiological-overview-of-the-first-waves-of-the-COVID-19-pandemic-in-African,161958,0,2.html |
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| Summary: | Introduction
Despite the fragile health systems in Africa,
the continent remained less impacted by the COVID-19
pandemic, with no clear understanding of the distributional
patterns across the countries and regions. This study
assessed the distribution patterns of COVID-19 infection
and the associated epidemiological measures across five
geographical regions and the 53 African Union (AU) member
countries during the first waves of the pandemic up to
January 2021.
Methods
This retrospective cross-sectional study utilized
COVID-19 data from publicly available data repositories of
the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (African
CDC) and Our World in Data from February 2020 to January
2021. We conducted descriptive and inferential analyses
of the reported cases, deaths, active cases, recoveries, and
epidemiological measures, including morbidity and mortality
rates (MMR), case fatality rate, and case ratios.
Results
A total of 3196589 SARS-CoV-2 seropositive cases
were reported in the AU during the period under review,
out of which 77486 died, 536784 remained active cases,
and 2582372 recovered. The mean case fatality rate in the
AU was 2.21%. The Southern region recorded the highest
average reported cases (149314), active cases (26156)
and deaths (3942), while the Northern region recorded the
highest average recoveries (121372). Conversely, the Central
region recorded the least average number of reported cases
(4978), recoveries (4554) and deaths (191), while the
Western region logged the least average number of active
cases (2274).
Conclusions
The Northern and Southern African regions
were worse hit than other regions. However, there is a
need to scale-up laboratory testing for SARS-CoV-2 in other
regions of the AU to enhance proper case ascertainment,
tracing and treatment of COVID-19 cases in a timely manner. |
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| ISSN: | 2654-1459 |