National estimates of critical care capacity in 54 African countries

  1. Jessica Craig
  2. Erta Kalanxhi
  3. Stephanie Hauck

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is an emerging threat across the African continent where critical care capacity is underdeveloped or unknown. In this paper, we describe national critical care capacity including number of ICU beds, number of ventilators, and number of physician and non-physician anesthesia providers for 54 African countries. Data was compiled from a variety of resources including World Bank databases, local and international news media, government reports, local healthcare workers, and published scientific literature. Overall, data on number of physicians, hospital beds, and ICU beds were available for over 90% of countries. Data on number of ventilators, number of physician anesthesia providers (PAP) and non-PAP were available for 46 (85%), 47 (87%) and 37 (69%) countries, respectively. Across all 54 countries included in the analysis, there was an average of 3.10 ICU beds and 0.97 ventilators per 100,000 people, and an average of 2.42 total (physician and non-physician) anesthesia providers per 100,000 people. The purpose of this analysis was to fill in knowledge gaps around current critical care capacity across the African continent and to inform national, regional, and international pandemic preparation and response efforts.

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  1. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.13.20100727v2 on medRxiv
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.13.20100727: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Despite these limitations, this database on African critical care capacity is the most comprehensive available to our knowledge, and alongside COVID-19 case burden projections, may be useful in guiding and informing national, regional, and continental outbreak preparedness and response.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.13.20100727v1 on medRxiv