Reconciling model predictions with low reported cases of COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa: insights from Madagascar.

Reconciling model predictions with low reported cases of COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa: insights from Madagascar. Glob Health Action. 2020 Dec 31;13(1):1816044 Authors: Evans MV, Garchitorena A, Rakotonanahary RJL, Drake JM, Andriamihaja B, Rajaonarifara E, Ngonghala CN, Roche B, Bonds MH, Rakotonirina J Abstract COVID-19 has wreaked havoc globally with particular concerns for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where models suggest that the majority of the population will become infected. Conventional wisdom suggests that the continent will bear a higher burden of COVID-19 for the same reasons it suffers from other infectious diseases: ecology, socio-economic conditions, lack of water and sanitation infrastructure, and weak health systems. However, so far SSA has reported lower incidence and fatalities compared to the predictions of standard models and the experience of other regions of the world. There are three leading explanations, each with different implications for the final epidemic burden: (1) low case detection, (2) differences in epidemiology (e.g. low R 0 ), and (3) policy interventions. The low number of cases have led some SSA governments to relaxing these policy interventions. Will this result in a resurgence of cases? To understand how to interpret the lower-than-expected COVID-19 case data in Madagascar, we use a simple age-structured model to explore each of these explanations and predict the epidemic impact associated with ...
Source: Global Health Action - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Tags: Glob Health Action Source Type: research