Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Cconakry, Republic of Guinea: analysis and relationship with meteorological factors

ABSTRACT

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), dates back to December 29, 2019, in Wuhan, China. It quickly spreads like wildfire to all continents in the following months. In Guinea, the first case of COVID-19 and death were all reported respectively on March 12 and April 16, 2020. Since then, several studies have found a relationship between certain environmental conditions such as the meteorological factors to have the potential of contributing to the spread of the virus. Thus, this study aims at examining the extent to which observed meteorological factors might have contributed to the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Conakry, from March 1 to May 31, 2020. Meteorological factors such as temperature (Tmin, Tmean and Tmax) and relative humidity (RHmin, RHmean and RHmax) were analyzed together with the data on the COVID-19. The dynamic of the COVID-19 in Guinea was analyzed along with that of some west African countries. The analysis on the dynamic of the COVID-19 pandemic in West Africa indicated Guinea as one of the most affected countries by the pandemic after Nigeria and Ghana. The study found that in general an increase in the temperature is linked to a decline in the COVID-19 number of cases and deaths, while an increase in the humidity is positively correlated to the number of cases and deaths. Nevertheless, from this study it was also observed that low temperature, mild diurnal temperature and high humidity are likely to favor its transmission. The study therefore, recommends that habitations and hospital rooms should be kept in relatively low humidity and relatively higher temperature to minimize the spread of the (SARS-CoV-2).