Assessment of Burden of COVID-19 Infection and the Dynamics in African Union Member States

Objectives: This study assessed the real-world burden of COVID-19 infection in African Union (AU) member states during the first 12 months of the pandemic using selected epidemiological measures. Method(s): Data were sourced from the African CDC and Our World in Data,for time period spanning February 2020 to January 2021. AU member states were classified into low, medium and high burden based on COVID-19 morbidity. We conducted descriptive and inferential analyses of the following epidemiological measures: morbidity and mortality rates (MMRs), case fatality rate (CFR), and case ratios. Result(s): A total of 3.2 million COVID-19 cases were reported during the first 12 months, with 2.6 million recoveries, 536,784 cases remaining active, and 77, 486 deaths. Most countries in AU experienced low burden of COVID-19 (49.1%, n=26) compared to 28.3% (n=15) with medium and 22.6% (n=12) with high burden of the disease. South Africa recorded the highest number of cases (1.31 million) followed by Morocco with 457,625 and Tunisia with 175,065 cases. Correspondently, death tolls for these countries were 36,467, 7,888 and 5,528 deaths, respectively. Of the total COVID-19 tests performed (83.8 million) during the first 12 months, 62.43% were from high burden countries. The least testing occurred in the medium burden (18.42%) countries. The overall CFR of AU was 2.21%. Morbidity rate of 327.52/105 population and mortality rate of 5.96/105 population were recorded during the period with significant (p<0.0001) variations across burden levels and regions. Continental morbidity and mortality rates of 17,359/105 population and 315.933/105 population were recorded with significant correlation (r=0.863, p<0.0001) between them and variations across selected epidemiological measures by COVID-19 burden levels. Conclusion(s): Understanding the true burden of the disease in AU countries is important for establishing the impact of the pandemic in the African continent and for intervention planning and deployment of resources including vaccines.Copyright © 2023

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 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 © 2023 Nwabuko O.C. and Mgbere O. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0)