COVID-19 in WHO African Region: Account and Correlation of Epidemiological Indices with Some Selected Health-related Metrics

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious and pathogenic viral disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Since it was first reported in Wuhan, China, it has spread across the continents. The study is aimed at describing epidemiological indices of COVID-19 as reported by the World Health Organization and to examine correlations with some country specific measures of general health status. METHODS: Data from the WHO African region were extracted from World Health Organization, Global Health Security Index, Worldometer and World Bank databases, as at September 8, 2020. Other epidemiological indices were computed for the various countries. Epidemiological indices of COVID-19 were correlated with some selected health related metrics: Global Health Security index (GHSI) and current health expenditure (CHE). Pearson correlation was used to access the relationship between the health-related metrics and epidemiological indices. RESULTS: Forty-seven (47) countries belonging to the WHO African region were evaluated. A total of 1,086,499 confirmed cases and 23,213 deaths were recorded giving a fatality rate of 2.1%. South Africa recorded the highest cumulative confirmed cases as well as deaths (Cases: 639,362; Deaths: 15,004) while Seychelles (Cases:135) and Eritrea/Seychelles (Deaths:0) had the least cumulative cases and deaths (135;0 and 330;0), respectively. South Africa recorded the highest attack rate (1127.67/100,000) while Republic of Tanzania recorded the least attack rate (0.78/100,000). The highest case fatality rate/ratio was observed in Chad (7.60%) while the least value was observed in Seychelles (0.0%). France was the most common country involved in travel history of index cases. Sporadic transmission was recorded in 3 countries, 9 countries had cluster of cases while the rest had community transmission. The first WHO African region country to record COVID-19 case was Algeria, while Comoros was the last. Significant positive correlation was found between COVID-19 case number/deaths and Global Health Security Index. CONCLUSION: The WHO African region has had its own share of the pandemic with all the countries being affected. The trio of cluster cases, sporadic and community transmission were recorded with majority being community transmission.