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Estimation of epidemiological parameters and ascertainment rate from early transmission of COVID-19 across Africa

Country reported case counts suggested a slow spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. Owing to inadequate public awareness, unestablished monitoring practices, limited testing and stigmas, there might exist extensive under-ascertainment of the true number of cas...

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Autores principales: Han, Qing, Bragazzi, Nicola, Asgary, Ali, Orbinski, James, Wu, Jianhong, Kong, Jude Dzevela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10509578/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37736525
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230316
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author Han, Qing
Bragazzi, Nicola
Asgary, Ali
Orbinski, James
Wu, Jianhong
Kong, Jude Dzevela
author_facet Han, Qing
Bragazzi, Nicola
Asgary, Ali
Orbinski, James
Wu, Jianhong
Kong, Jude Dzevela
author_sort Han, Qing
collection PubMed
description Country reported case counts suggested a slow spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. Owing to inadequate public awareness, unestablished monitoring practices, limited testing and stigmas, there might exist extensive under-ascertainment of the true number of cases, especially at the beginning of the novel epidemic. We developed a compartmentalized epidemiological model to track the early epidemics in 54 African countries. Data on the reported cumulative number of cases and daily confirmed cases were used to fit the model for the time period with no or little massive national interventions yet in each country. We estimated that the mean basic reproduction number is 2.02 (s.d. 0.7), with a range between 1.12 (Zambia) and 3.64 (Nigeria). The mean overall report rate was estimated to be 5.37% (s.d. 5.71%), with the highest 30.41% in Libya and the lowest 0.02% in São Tomé and Príncipe. An average of 5.46% (s.d. 6.4%) of all infected cases were severe cases and 66.74% (s.d. 17.28%) were asymptomatic ones. The estimated low reporting rates in Africa suggested a clear need for improved reporting and surveillance systems in these countries.
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spelling pubmed-105095782023-09-21 Estimation of epidemiological parameters and ascertainment rate from early transmission of COVID-19 across Africa Han, Qing Bragazzi, Nicola Asgary, Ali Orbinski, James Wu, Jianhong Kong, Jude Dzevela R Soc Open Sci Mathematics Country reported case counts suggested a slow spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. Owing to inadequate public awareness, unestablished monitoring practices, limited testing and stigmas, there might exist extensive under-ascertainment of the true number of cases, especially at the beginning of the novel epidemic. We developed a compartmentalized epidemiological model to track the early epidemics in 54 African countries. Data on the reported cumulative number of cases and daily confirmed cases were used to fit the model for the time period with no or little massive national interventions yet in each country. We estimated that the mean basic reproduction number is 2.02 (s.d. 0.7), with a range between 1.12 (Zambia) and 3.64 (Nigeria). The mean overall report rate was estimated to be 5.37% (s.d. 5.71%), with the highest 30.41% in Libya and the lowest 0.02% in São Tomé and Príncipe. An average of 5.46% (s.d. 6.4%) of all infected cases were severe cases and 66.74% (s.d. 17.28%) were asymptomatic ones. The estimated low reporting rates in Africa suggested a clear need for improved reporting and surveillance systems in these countries. The Royal Society 2023-09-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10509578/ /pubmed/37736525 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230316 Text en © 2023 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Mathematics
Han, Qing
Bragazzi, Nicola
Asgary, Ali
Orbinski, James
Wu, Jianhong
Kong, Jude Dzevela
Estimation of epidemiological parameters and ascertainment rate from early transmission of COVID-19 across Africa
title Estimation of epidemiological parameters and ascertainment rate from early transmission of COVID-19 across Africa
title_full Estimation of epidemiological parameters and ascertainment rate from early transmission of COVID-19 across Africa
title_fullStr Estimation of epidemiological parameters and ascertainment rate from early transmission of COVID-19 across Africa
title_full_unstemmed Estimation of epidemiological parameters and ascertainment rate from early transmission of COVID-19 across Africa
title_short Estimation of epidemiological parameters and ascertainment rate from early transmission of COVID-19 across Africa
title_sort estimation of epidemiological parameters and ascertainment rate from early transmission of covid-19 across africa
topic Mathematics
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10509578/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37736525
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230316
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