Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 May;5(5):e002699.
doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002699.

The relatively young and rural population may limit the spread and severity of COVID-19 in Africa: a modelling study

Binta Zahra Diop  1 , Marieme Ngom  2 , Clémence Pougué Biyong  3 , John N Pougué Biyong  4
Affiliations

The relatively young and rural population may limit the spread and severity of COVID-19 in Africa: a modelling study

Binta Zahra Diop et al. BMJ Glob Health. 2020 May.

Erratum in

Abstract

Introduction: A novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread to all regions of the world. There is great uncertainty regarding how countries' characteristics will affect the spread of the epidemic; to date, there are few studies that attempt to predict the spread of the epidemic in African countries. In this paper, we investigate the role of demographic patterns, urbanisation and comorbidities on the possible trajectories of COVID-19 in Ghana, Kenya and Senegal.

Methods: We use an augmented deterministic Susceptible-Infected-Recovered model to predict the true spread of the disease, under the containment measures taken so far. We disaggregate the infected compartment into asymptomatic, mildly symptomatic and severely symptomatic to match observed clinical development of COVID-19. We also account for age structures, urbanisation and comorbidities (HIV, tuberculosis, anaemia).

Results: In our baseline model, we project that the peak of active cases will occur in July, subject to the effectiveness of policy measures. When accounting for the urbanisation, and factoring in comorbidities, the peak may occur between 2 June and 17 June (Ghana), 22 July and 29 August (Kenya) and, finally, 28 May and 15 June (Senegal). Successful containment policies could lead to lower rates of severe infections. While most cases will be mild, we project in the absence of policies further containing the spread, that between 0.78% and 1.03%, 0.61% and 1.22%, and 0.60% and 0.84% of individuals in Ghana, Kenya and Senegal, respectively, may develop severe symptoms at the time of the peak of the epidemic.

Conclusion: Compared with Europe, Africa's younger and rural population may modify the severity of the epidemic. The large youth population may lead to more infections but most of these infections will be asymptomatic or mild, and will probably go undetected. The higher prevalence of underlying conditions must be considered.

Keywords: epidemiology; health policy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Benchmark, South Korea.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Timing of policies across countries.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Projection of active infections.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Projected active infections accounting for underlying conditions and rural areas. Y-axis is per cent of total population.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Projected severe active infections mirroring South Korean’s Rt.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center COVID-19 Dashboard by the center for systems science and engineering (CSSE), 2020. Available: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html [Accessed 27 Apr 2020].
    1. United Nations Economic Commission for Africa The demographic profile of African countries, 2015. Available: https://www.uneca.org/publications/demographic-profi%1Fle-african-countries [Accessed 25 Apr 2020].
    1. Lancet global burden of disease. Available: https://www.thelancet.com/gbd?source=post_page [Accessed 27 Apr 2020].
    1. El Bcheraoui C, Mimche H, Miangotar Y, et al. . Burden of disease in francophone Africa, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the global burden of disease study 2017. Lancet Glob Health 2020;8:e341–51. 10.1016/S2214-109X(20)30024-3 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Demographics (Population, Age, Sex, Trends) - Worldometer 2020, 2020. Available: https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/world-demographics/ [Accessed 27 Apr 2020].