Epidemiological profile study of COVID-19 in West African countries: Nigeria, Senegal, Mauritania, Cape Verde and Mali

  1. Mouhamadou Faly Ba
  2. Boly Diop
  3. Oumar Bassoum
  4. Ndèye Marème Sougou
  5. Khadim Niang
  6. Emmanuel Bonnet
  7. Valéry Ridde
  8. Adama Faye

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Abstract

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic was first reported in West Africa on 27 February 2020 in Nigeria. It subsequently spread to other countries in the region. The objective of this study is to analyze the epidemiological profile of COVID-19 in West Africa from the first reported case to 31 January 2021.

Method

We publicly used available data from reliable sources and from the “COVID-19R” package. We used epidemic curves to describe the trends in the daily evolution of confirmed cases and deaths of COVID-19 in West Africa and specifically in the five countries. The reproduction rate and evolution rates were calculated from these trends.

Results

As of 31 January 2021, West Africa had 342,938 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 4,496 deaths. Nigeria had 131,242 cases with 1,586 deaths. Senegal had 26,523 cases with 628 deaths. The case-fatality rate in Mali was 4.08% and the attack rate in Cape Verde was 2587 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. In Nigeria, Senegal, Mauritania and Mali, the epidemic curves supported by the evolution rates showed an increase in confirmed cases and deaths of COVID-19 during December 2020 and January 2021 compared to the last two months. The effective reproduction rates (R e ) inferred a slowdown in virus transmission (R e < 1) in these countries except for Senegal.

Conclusion

The results showed that COVID-19 was still circulating in some West African countries in late 2020 and early 2021. By improving the health system and with context-specific public health interventions and vaccination, these countries should effectively control COVID-19.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.31.21258118: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Despite these limitations, the study provides an understanding of the transmission pattern to date and underlines the importance of epidemiological surveillance in countries affected by COVID-19. These data can be used for the planning and implementation of control measures. For this reason, surveillance and simple descriptive analysis should be continued as long as COVID-19 continues to spread. The data in this article are from 31 January 2021 and in the future the transmission of the disease is supposed to be considered again.

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.05.31.21258118v1 on medRxiv