Estimation of the Serial Interval and the Effective Reproductive Number of COVID-19 Outbreak Using Contact Data in Burkina Faso, a Sub-Saharan African Country

The COVID-19 outbreak has spread all around the world in less than four months. However, the pattern of the epidemic was different according to the countries. We propose this paper to describe the transmission network and to estimate the serial interval and the reproductive number of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Burkina Faso, a Sub-Saharan African country. Data from the COVID-19 response team was analyzed. Information on the 804 first detected cases were pulled together. From contact tracing information, 126 infector-infectee pairs were built. The principal infection clusters with their index cases were observed, principally the two major identified indexes in Burkina. However, the generations of infections were usually short (less than four). The serial interval was estimated to follow a gamma distribution with a shape parameter 1.04 (95% credibility interval: 0.69–1.57) and a scale parameter of 5.69 (95% credibility interval: 3.76–9.11). The basic reproductive number was estimated at 2.36 (95% confidence interval: 1.46–3.26). However, the effective reproductive number decreases very quickly, reaching a minimum value of 0.20 (95% confidence interval: 0.06–0.34). Estimated parameters are made available to monitor the outbreak in Sub-Saharan African countries. These show serial intervals like in the other continents but less infectiousness.