ABSTRACT
By considering the economic and social contribution of Senegalese artisanal fisheries to the national economy, this study firstly provides elements of analysis of the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic in the fishing sector. Secondly, it lifts the veil on the adaptation strategies of the actors concerned. The field surveys reveal that the response measures of the authorities have affected the production, distribution, and marketing chains of fisheries products. The results show a remarkable decrease in landings. The landings of pelagic fish species in Ouakam, Hann, Soumbédioune, and Mbour fishing ports have decreased by −10.11%, −61.25%, −9.75%, and −18.98% proportionately. The same downward trend for demersal fish species was observed, except in Ouakam fishing port. The landing increased slightly to 29.28%. Also, significant income losses have been reported, particularly by fish traders, following the closure of the air borders and the decrease in the selling prices of species formerly destined for export. Thus, faced with this problem, the artisanal fishermen have developed site-specific strategies to continue their activities, which have slowed down. However, this pandemic has paralyzed artisanal fisheries activities, demonstrating the need for this study to strengthen the economic resilience of the sector.
ABSTRACT
Background: Emergence of Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants may contribute to prolonging the pandemic and increasing morbidity, and mortality related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We describe the dynamics of circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants identified during the different COVID-19 waves that occurred in Mali between April 2021 and October 2021. Methods: We sequenced respiratory SARS-CoV-2 complete spike (S) gene from positive samples. Generated sequences were aligned by Variant Reporter v3.0 using Wuhan-1 strain as a reference. Mutations were noted using the GISAID and Nextclade platforms. Results: Of 16,797 nasopharyngeal swab samples tested, 6.0 % (1008/16,797) were RT-qPCR positive for SARS-CoV-2. Of these, 16.07% (162/1008) had a Ct value ≤ 28 and were amplified and sequenced. We recovered complete S-gene sequence from 80 of 162 [49.8%] samples. We identified seven distinct variants including Delta [62.5%], Alpha [1.2%], Beta [1.2%], Eta [30.0%], 20B [2.5%], 19B and 20A [1.2% each]. Conclusion and perspectives: Our results show the presence of several SARS-CoV-2 variants during COVID-19 waves in Mali between April and October 2021. The continued emergence of new variants highlights the need to strengthen local real-time sequencing capacity, and genomic surveillance for better and coordinated national responses to SARS-CoV-2.