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Introduction les objectifs de ce travail étaient de décrire le profil clinique et épidémiologique des décès COVID-19 en Tunisie notifié à l´ONMNE (Observatoire National des Maladies Nouvelles et Émergentes) entre le 02 mars 2020 et le 28 février 2021 et de comparer la mortalité COVID-19 enregistrée en Tunisie aux données internationales. Méthodes nous avons mené une étude nationale descriptive longitudinale prospective auprès des données colligées à travers le système national de surveillance de l´infection au SARS-CoV-2 de l´ONMNE, Ministère de la Santé. Tous les décès COVID-19 survenus en Tunisie entre mars 2020 et février 2021 ont été inclus dans cette étude. Les données ont été colligées auprès des structures hospitalières, des municipalités et des directions régionales de la santé. Les notifications des décès ont été collectées à travers différentes sources d´information (méthode de triangulation): les directions régionales de santé, Le ShocRoom (Strategic Health Operations Center ou Centre stratégique d´opérations sanitaires), les structures sanitaires publiques et privés, la Cellule de Crise de la Présidence du Gouvernement, La Direction d´Hygiène et de protection de l´Environnement, le Ministère des Affaires Locales et de l´Environnement, dans le cadre de suivi des cas confirmés par l´équipe de l´ONMNE, les résultats RT-PCR/TDR positifs en post mortem. Résultats durant la période de l´étude, 8051 décès ont été enregistrés soit une mortalité proportionnelle de 10,4%. L´âge médian était de 73 ans avec un intervalle interquartile de 17 ans. Le sex-ratio (M/F) était de 1,8. Le taux brut de mortalité était de 69,1/100 000 habitants et la létalité était de 3,5%. L´étude de la courbe épidémique a montré 2 pics de décès le 29 octobre 2020 et le 22 janvier 2021 avec respectivement 70 et 86 décès notifiés. La distribution spatiale des décès a montré que la région du Sud tunisien avait enregistré le taux de mortalité le plus élevé. Les patients âgés de 65 ans et plus étaient les plus concernés (73,7% des cas) avec un taux brut de mortalité de 570,9/100 000 habitants et une létalité de 13,7%. Conclusion la stratégie de prévention basée sur les mesures de santé publique doit être renforcées par le déploiement rapide de la vaccination anti-COVID-19 surtout pour les populations à risque de décès.
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Introduction: the purpose of this study was to describe the clinical and epidemiological features of COVID-19-related deaths in Tunisia notified at the ONMNE (National Observatory of New and emerging Diseases) between 2nd March 2020 and 28th February 2021 and to compare COVID-19-related deaths recorded in Tunisia with the international data. Methods: we conducted a national prospective longitudinal descriptive study of data collected from the National Surveillance System of SARS-CoV-2 infection of the ONMNE, Ministry of Health. All COVID-19-related deaths that occurred in Tunisia between March 2020 and February 2021 were included in this study. Data were collected from hospitals, municipalities and regional health departments. Death notifications were collected from multiple data sources (triangulation): The Regional Directorate of Basic Health Care, the ShocRoom (Strategic Health Operations Center), public and private health facilities, the Crisis Unit of the Presidency of the Government, the Directorate for Hygiene and Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Local Affairs and the Environment, as part of the follow-up of confirmed cases by the ONMNE team, positive RT-PCR / TDR post mortem results. Results: during this study, 8051 deaths were recorded, corresponding to a proportional mortality of 10.4%. The median age was 73 years, with an interquartile range of 17 years. Sex-ratio (M/F) was 1.8. The crude death rate was 69.1/100 000 inhabitants and fatality rate was 3.5%. The analysis of the epidemic curve showed 2 peaks of deaths on 29th October 2020 and 22nd January 2021, with 70 and 86 deaths notified respectively. The spatial distribution of mortality showed that the southern Tunisian region had the highest mortality rate. Patients aged 65 and over were most affected (73.7% of cases) with a crude mortality rate of 570.9/100,000 inhabitants and a fatality rate of 13.7%. Conclusion: prevention strategy based on public health measures must be reinforced by the rapid deployment of anti-COVID-19 vaccination, especially for people at risk of death.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Humans , Adolescent , Tunisia/epidemiology , Prospective Studies , SARS-CoV-2 , Public HealthABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The mass vaccination campaign against SARS-CoV-2 was started in Tunisia on 13 March 2021 by using progressively seven different vaccines approved for emergency use. Herein, we aimed to evaluate the humoral and cellular immunity in subjects aged 40 years and over who received one of the following two-dose regimen vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, namely mRNA-1273 or Spikevax (Moderna), BNT162B2 or Comirnaty (Pfizer-BioNTech), Gam-COVID-Vac or Sputnik V (Gamaleya Research Institute), ChAdOx1-S or Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca), BIBP (Sinopharm), and Coronavac (Sinovac). MATERIAL AND METHODS: For each type of vaccine, a sample of subjects aged 40 and over was randomly selected from the national platform for monitoring COVID-19 vaccination and contacted to participate to this study. All consenting participants were sampled for peripheral blood at 3-7 weeks after the second vaccine dose to perform anti-S and anti-N serology by the Elecsys® (Lenexa, KS, USA) anti-SARS-CoV-2 assays (Roche® Basel, Switzerland). The CD4 and CD8 T cell responses were evaluated by the QuantiFERON® SARS-CoV-2 (Qiagen® Basel, Switzerland) for a randomly selected sub-group. RESULTS: A total of 501 people consented to the study and, of them, 133 were included for the cellular response investigations. Both humoral and cellular immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 antigens differed significantly between all tested groups. RNA vaccines induced the highest levels of humoral and cellular anti-S responses followed by adenovirus vaccines and then by inactivated vaccines. Vaccines from the same platform induced similar levels of specific anti-S immune responses except in the case of the Sputnik V and the AstraZeneca vaccine, which exhibited contrasting effects on humoral and cellular responses. When analyses were performed in subjects with negative anti-N antibodies, results were similar to those obtained within the total cohort, except for the Moderna vaccine, which gave a better cellular immune response than the Pfizer vaccine and RNA vaccines, which induced similar cellular immune responses to those of adenovirus vaccines. CONCLUSION: Collectively, our data confirmed the superiority of the RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, in particular that of Moderna, for both humoral and cellular immunogenicity. Our results comparing between different vaccine platforms in a similar population are of great importance since they may help decision makers to adopt the best strategy for further national vaccination programs.
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BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to characterize the transmission chains and clusters of COVID-19 infection in Tunisia. METHODS: All cases were confirmed by Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction of a nasopharyngeal specimen. Contact tracing is undertaken for all confirmed cases in order to identify close contacts that will be systematically screened and quarantined. Transmission chains were identified based on field investigation, contact tracing, results of screening tests and by assessing all probable mode of transmission and interactions. RESULTS: As of May 18, 2020, 656 cases out of a total of 1043 confirmed cases of Coronavirus disease 2019 belong to 127 transmission chains identified during the epidemic (mean age 42.36 years, Standard deviation 19.56 and sex ratio 0.86). The virus transmission is the most concentrated in the governorate of Tunis (31.5%), Ariana (10.2%) and Ben Arous (10.2%). Virus transmission occurred 50 times (9.72% of secondary transmission events) between two different governorates. A maximum of seven generations of secondary infection was identified, whereas 62% of these secondary infections belong the first generation. A total of 11 "super spreader" cases were identified in this investigation. Four large clusters have been identified. The evolution of secondary cases highlighted two peaks: one in 2nd April and a second in 16 th April whereas imported cases caused local transmission of virus during the early phase of the epidemic. CONCLUSION: Correct contact tracing and early active case finding is useful to identify transmission chains and source of infection in order to contain the widespread transmission in the community.
Subject(s)
COVID-19/transmission , Adult , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , COVID-19/diagnosis , COVID-19/virology , Cluster Analysis , Contact Tracing , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Nasopharynx/virology , RNA, Viral/analysis , RNA, Viral/metabolism , Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction , SARS-CoV-2/genetics , SARS-CoV-2/isolation & purification , Tunisia , Young AdultABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues to constitute an international public health concern. Few data are available on the duration and prognostic factors of the disease. We aimed to study the recovery time among a Tunisian cohort of COVID-19 confirmed patients and identify the prognostic factors. METHODS: A retrospective, nationwide study was conducted from March 2 to May 8, 2020, recruiting all patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19, by RT-PCR methods, in Tunisia. Data were collected via phone call interview. Kaplan-Meir Methods and Cox proportional hazards regression models were, respectively, used to study the recovery time and estimate its prognostic factors. RESULTS: One thousand and thirty patients with COVID-19 (aged 43.2 ± 18.2 years, 526 female (51.1%)) were enrolled. Among them 141 (14.8%) were healthcare professionals. Out of 173 patients (17.8%) admitted to the hospital, 47 were admitted in an intensive care unit. Among 827 patients who didn't require specialized care, 55.5% were self-isolated at home, while the rest were in specialized centers. Six hundred and two patients were symptomatic. A total of 634 (61.6%) patients have recovered and 45 (4.4%) patients died. The median duration of illness was estimated to be 31 days (95% CI: [29-32]). Older age (HR = 0.66, CI:[0.46-0.96], P = 0.031) and symptoms (HR = 0.61, CI:[0.43-0.81], P = 0.021) were independently associated with a delay in recovery time. Being a healthcare professional (HR = 1.52, CI: [1.10-2.08], P = 0.011) and patients in home isolation compared to isolation centers (HR = 2.99, CI: [1.85-4.83], P < 10¯3) were independently associated with faster recovery time. CONCLUSION: The duration of illness was estimated to be 1 month. However, this long estimated duration of illness may not equate to infectiousness. A particular attention must to be paid to elderly and symptomatic patients with closer monitoring.
Subject(s)
COVID-19/diagnosis , Adolescent , Adult , Age Factors , Aged , COVID-19/epidemiology , COVID-19/mortality , COVID-19/virology , Child , Disease Outbreaks , Female , Hospitalization/statistics & numerical data , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Prognosis , Proportional Hazards Models , RNA, Viral/metabolism , Retrospective Studies , SARS-CoV-2/genetics , SARS-CoV-2/isolation & purification , Survival Rate , Tunisia/epidemiology , Young AdultABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Describing transmission dynamics of the outbreak and impact of intervention measures are critical to planning responses to future outbreaks and providing timely information to guide policy makers decision. We estimate serial interval (SI) and temporal reproduction number (Rt) of SARS-CoV-2 in Tunisia. METHODS: We collected data of investigations and contact tracing between March 1, 2020 and May 5, 2020 as well as illness onset data during the period February 29-May 5, 2020 from National Observatory of New and Emerging Diseases of Tunisia. Maximum likelihood (ML) approach is used to estimate dynamics of Rt. RESULTS: Four hundred ninety-one of infector-infectee pairs were involved, with 14.46% reported pre-symptomatic transmission. SI follows Gamma distribution with mean 5.30 days [95% Confidence Interval (CI) 4.66-5.95] and standard deviation 0.26 [95% CI 0.23-0.30]. Also, we estimated large changes in Rt in response to the combined lockdown interventions. The Rt moves from 3.18 [95% Credible Interval (CrI) 2.73-3.69] to 1.77 [95% CrI 1.49-2.08] with curfew prevention measure, and under the epidemic threshold (0.89 [95% CrI 0.84-0.94]) by national lockdown measure. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our findings highlight contribution of interventions to interrupt transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Tunisia.