An in-depth statistical analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic’s initial spread in the WHO African region

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, sub-Saharan African countries experienced comparatively lower rates of SARS-CoV-2 infections and related deaths than in other parts of the world, the reasons for which remain unclear. Yet, there was also considerable variation between countries. Here,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMJ global health 2022-04, Vol.7 (4), p.e007295
Main Authors: James, Ananthu, Dalal, Jyoti, Kousi, Timokleia, Vivacqua, Daniela, Câmara, Daniel Cardoso Portela, Dos Reis, Izabel Cristina, Botero Mesa, Sara, Ng’ambi, Wignston, Ansobi, Papy, Bianchi, Lucas M, Lee, Theresa M, Ogundiran, Opeayo, Stoll, Beat, Chimbetete, Cleophas, Mboussou, Franck, Impouma, Benido, Hofer, Cristina Barroso, Coelho, Flávio Codeço, Keiser, Olivia, Abbate, Jessica Lee
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Cross-Sectional Studies
cross-sectional survey
Disease transmission
Epidemics
epidemiology
Fatalities
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
Humans
mathematical modelling
Original Research
Pandemics
Per capita
Population density
Public health
Regression analysis
SARS-CoV-2
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Statistical analysis
Tourism
World Health Organization
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Summary:During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, sub-Saharan African countries experienced comparatively lower rates of SARS-CoV-2 infections and related deaths than in other parts of the world, the reasons for which remain unclear. Yet, there was also considerable variation between countries. Here, we explored potential drivers of this variation among 46 of the 47 WHO African region Member States in a cross-sectional study. We described five indicators of early COVID-19 spread and severity for each country as of 29 November 2020: delay in detection of the first case, length of the early epidemic growth period, cumulative and peak attack rates and crude case fatality ratio (CFR). We tested the influence of 13 pre-pandemic and pandemic response predictor variables on the country-level variation in the spread and severity indicators using multivariate statistics and regression analysis. We found that wealthier African countries, with larger tourism industries and older populations, had higher peak (p
ISSN:2059-7908
2059-7908
DOI:10.1136/bmjgh-2021-007295