Is there an association between COVID-19 mortality and Human development index? The case study of Nigeria and some selected countries

OBJECTIVES: We assessed Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of COVID-19 as an indicator to situate the performance of Nigeria relative to other selected countries. We obtained case fatality rates of different countries from data sets available from open-sources. The CFRs were calculated as the rate of deaths compared with total cases. The values were compared with Nigeria’s COVID-19 CFR. Other relevant statistical comparisons were also conducted. RESULTS: The worst performing countries with regards to CFR in descending order were Yemen (19.5%), Peru (9.0%) Mexico (7.6%), Sudan (7.4%) and Ecuador (6.3%) while the best performing nations were Bhutan (0.11%), Burundi (0.19%), Iceland (0.20%), Laos (0.21%) and Qatar (0.25%). The CFR of Nigeria was 1.39% which falls below the 50th percentile. Other comparison done showed significant difference in the CFR values between countries similar to Nigeria and countries that are dissimilar when HDI is used. (Mann–Whitney U test 126.0, p = 0.01). The trend of the CFR in Nigeria showed a steady decline and flattening of the CFR curve which does not seem to be affected by the spikes in the daily declared cases. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13104-022-06070-8.