Kousi, T and Vivacqua, D and Dalal, J and James, A and Câmara, DCP and Botero Mesa, S and Chimbetete, C and Impouma, B and Williams, GS and Mboussou, F and Mlanda, T and Bukhari, A and Keiser, O and Abbate, JL and Hofer, CB (2022) COVID-19 pandemic in Africa's island nations during the first 9 months: A descriptive study of variation in patterns of infection, severe disease, and response measures. In: BMJ Global Health, 7 (3).
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Abstract
The geographic and economic characteristics unique to island nations create a different set of conditions for, and responses to, the spread of a pandemic compared with those of mainland countries. Here, we aimed to describe the initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the potential conditions and responses affecting variation in the burden of infections and severe disease burden, across the six island nations of the WHO's Africa region: Cabo Verde, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, São Tomé e PrÃncipe and Seychelles. We analysed the publicly available COVID-19 data on confirmed cases and deaths from the beginning of the pandemic through 29 November 2020. To understand variation in the course of the pandemic in these nations, we explored differences in their economic statuses, healthcare expenditures and facilities, age and sex distributions, leading health risk factors, densities of the overall and urban populations and the main industries in these countries. We also reviewed the non-pharmaceutical response measures implemented nationally. We found that the burden of SARS-CoV-2 infection was reduced by strict early limitations on movement and biased towards nations where detection capacity was higher, while the burden of severe COVID-19 was skewed towards countries that invested less in healthcare and those that had older populations and greater prevalence of key underlying health risk factors. These findings highlight the need for Africa's island nations to invest more in healthcare and in local testing capacity to reduce the need for reliance on border closures that have dire consequences for their economies.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Publication: | BMJ Global Health |
| Publisher: | BMJ Publishing Group |
| Additional Information: | The copyright for this article belongs to the Authors. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19; epidemiology; health systems; prevention strategies; public health COVID-19; epidemilogy; health systems; prevention strategies; public health |
| Department/Centre: | Division of Mechanical Sciences > Chemical Engineering |
| Date Deposited: | 01 Jul 2022 06:06 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Jul 2022 06:06 |
| URI: | https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/73759 |
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