Survey of COVID-19 associated symptoms and reported deaths in an urban community in Kano, Nigeria

  1. Disha Shahani
  2. Zayyad Sani Farouq
  3. Hadiza Galadima
  4. Ashna Khare
  5. Nirmal Ravi

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Abstract

Background

Nigeria reported the first case of COVID-19 on February 27, 2020. By June of 2020, many people reported experiencing mild COVID-19 associated symptoms, yet did not get tested due to inaccessible testing and insufficient knowledge of the disease. There were media stories quoting grave diggers in Kano who reported high burial rates during this time.

Methods

In order to draw more data on COVID-19 cases during this time period, we conducted a cross-sectional symptom survey in Kano, surveying 291 adults. Participants were asked to report demographic characteristics, past COVID-19 testing and symptoms, and community deaths. To assess associations between COVID-19 associated symptoms and socio-demographic characteristics, bivariate analyses using Chi-square tests were performed. A logistic regression assessing the association between any reported symptoms and the kind of work (indoor/outdoor) was done while adjusting for age, gender and education level.

Results

Half of the respondents reported at least one symptom associated with COVID-19; the three most common symptoms were loss of appetite, cough, and fever. There was a statistically significant relationship between age group of the respondent and presence of COVID-19 associated symptoms. Gender or level of education did not have statistically significant association with COVID-19 associated symptoms among the respondents. People with outdoor occupations such as trading and hawking were more than twice as likely to report COVID-19 associated symptoms compared to those who were unemployed. Just under half of the respondents reported knowing someone who died in their community, with unexplained causes attributed to two-thirds of these cases. Our study found evidence of COVID-19 associated symptoms especially among the older population and unexplained deaths in Kano. Lack of confirmatory laboratory tests and absence of baseline vital statistics precluded us from finding definitive evidence for or against COVID-19 infection and associated mortality.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.14.21258236: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: Informed verbal consent was obtained from all participants before data was collected from them.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical Analysis: Statistical analyses were conducted using STATA MP 13 (Lakeway Drive College Station, Texas).
    STATA
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    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:
    In addition to the limitations mentioned above such as lack of confirmatory lab test and baseline mortality data, we also acknowledge the small sample size as a limitation of our study. The sample population was small to perform sub-group analyses based on testing and symptom type. Additionally, over-reporting of symptoms due to prompts from the checklist could have been a possible source of bias leading to some over-estimated odds-ratios.

    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 10.1101/2021.06.14.21258236v1 on medRxiv