Importations of COVID-19 into African countries and risk of onward spread
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Abstract
Background
The emergence of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019 has caused widespread transmission around the world. As new epicentres in Europe and America have arisen, of particular concern is the increased number of imported coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Africa, where the impact of the pandemic could be more severe. We aim to estimate the number of COVID-19 cases imported from 12 major epicentres in Europe and America to each African country, as well as the probability of reaching 10,000 cases in total by the end of March, April, May, and June following viral introduction.
Methods
We used the reported number of cases imported from the 12 major epicentres in Europe and America to Singapore, as well as flight data, to estimate the number of imported cases in each African country. Under the assumption that Singapore has detected all the imported cases, the estimates for Africa were thus conservative. We then propagated the uncertainty in the imported case count estimates to simulate the onward spread of the virus, until 10,000 cases are reached or the end of June, whichever is earlier. Specifically, 1,000 simulations were run separately under four different combinations of parameter values to test the sensitivity of our results.
Results
We estimated Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, Egypt, Tunisia, and Nigeria as having the largest number of COVID-19 cases imported from the 12 major epicentres. Based on our 1,000 simulation runs, Morocco and Algeria’s estimated probability of reaching 10,000 cases by end of March was close to 100% under all scenarios. In particular, we identified countries with less than 1,000 cases in total reported by end of June whilst the estimated probability of reaching 10,000 cases by then was higher than 50% even under the most optimistic scenario.
Conclusions
Our study highlights particular countries that are likely to reach (or have reached) 10,000 cases far earlier than the reported data suggest, calling for the prioritization of resources to mitigate the further spread of the epidemic.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.22.20110304: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not 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, most of our model assumptions throughout the analyses have been fairly conservative to avoid inflating the projections of the SARS-CoV-2 spread. For example, the reported number of imported cases in …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.22.20110304: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not 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, most of our model assumptions throughout the analyses have been fairly conservative to avoid inflating the projections of the SARS-CoV-2 spread. For example, the reported number of imported cases in Singapore was assumed to be complete, and the risk of returning citizens carrying SARS-CoV-2 after travel restrictions came into force in each African country was also not included. Simulations of the onward spread of the virus were based on the estimated number of imported infections from the selected 10 epicentre countries, and stay-at-home order was assumed to be effective (reproduction numbers being 1.5 and 1.0 in the two scenarios we considered) and sustainable. In light of these conservative assumptions, any countries found to have a high probability of reaching 10,000 infections by end March or April—especially those with very limited cases detected—need urgent actions.
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.
- No funding statement was detected.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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