Impact of weather conditions on incidence and mortality of COVID-19 pandemic in Africa.

OBJECTIVE: The weather-related conditions change the ecosystem and pose a threat to social, economic and environmental development. It creates unprecedented or unanticipated human health problems in various places or times of the year. Africa is the world's second largest and most populous continent and has relatively changeable weather conditions. The present study aims to investigate the impact of weather conditions, heat and humidity on the incidence and mortality of COVID-19 pandemic in various regions of Africa. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, 16 highly populated countries from North, South, East, West, and Central African regions were selected. The data on COVID-19 pandemic including daily new cases and new deaths were recorded from World Health Organization. The daily temperature and humidity figures were obtained from the weather web "Time and Date". The daily cases, deaths, temperature and humidity were recorded from the date of appearance of first case of "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)" in the African region, from Feb 14 to August 2, 2020. RESULTS: In African countries, the daily basis mean temperature from Feb 14, 2020 to August 2, 2020 was 26.16±0.12°C, and humidity was 57.41±0.38%. The overall results revealed a significant inverse correlation between humidity and the number of cases (r= -0.192, p<0.001) and deaths (r= -0.213, p<0.001). Similarly, a significant inverse correlation was found between temperature and the number of cases (r= -0.25, p<0.001) and deaths (r=-0.18, p<0.001). Furthermore, the regression results showed that with 1% increase in humidity the number of cases and deaths was significantly reduced by 3.6% and 3.7% respectively. Congruently, with 1°C increase in temperature, the number of cases and deaths was also significantly reduced by 15.1% and 10.5%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Increase in relative humidity and temperature was associated with a decrease in the number of daily cases and deaths due to COVID-19 pandemic in various African countries. The study findings on weather events and COVID-19 pandemic have an impact at African regional levels to project the incidence and mortality trends with regional weather events which will enhance public health readiness and assist in planning to fight against this pandemic.

Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV: prevalence, biological and clinical characteristics comparison with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV.

OBJECTIVE: Human infections with zoonotic coronavirus contain emerging and reemerging pathogenic characteristics which have raised great public health concern. This study aimed at investigating the global prevalence, biological and clinical characteristics of novel coronavirus, Wuhan China (2019-nCoV), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV), and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection outbreaks. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The data on the global outbreak of "2019-nCoV, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV" were obtained from World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), concerned ministries and research institutes. We also recorded the information from research documents published in global scientific journals indexed in ISI Web of Science and research centers on the prevalence, biological and clinical characteristics of 2019-nCoV, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV. RESULTS: Worldwide, SARS-CoV involved 32 countries, with 8422 confirmed cases and 916 (10.87%) casualties from November 2002 to August 2003. MERS-CoV spread over 27 states, causing 2496 cases and 868 (34.77%) fatalities during the period April 2012 to December 2019. However, the novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV spread swiftly the global borders of 27 countries. It infected 34799 people and resulted in 724 (2.08%) casualties during the period December 29, 2019 to February 7, 2020. The fatality rate of coronavirus MERS-CoV was (34.77%) higher than SARS-CoV (10.87%) and 2019-nCoV (2.08%); however, the 2019-nCoV transmitted rapidly in comparison to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. CONCLUSIONS: The novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV has diverse epidemiological and biological characteristics, making it more contagious than SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. It has affected more people in a short time period compared to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, although the fatality rate of MERS-CoV was higher than SARS-CoV and 2019-nCoV. The major clinical manifestations in coronavirus infections 2019-nCoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS CoV are fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, generalized myalgia, malaise, drowsy, diarrhea, confusion, dyspnea, and pneumonia. Global health authorities should take immediate measures to prevent the outbreaks of such emerging and reemerging pathogens across the globe to minimize the disease burden locally and globally.