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
Review
. 2021 Dec 21:40:249.
doi: 10.11604/pamj.2021.40.249.31107. eCollection 2021.

COVID-19 pandemic waves: how prepared is West Africa for managing a high COVID-19 caseload? Urgent actions needed

Virgil Kuassi Lokossou  1 , Chukwuma David Umeokonkwo  2   3 , Stanley Okolo  4 , Patrick Mboya Nguku  3 , Nanlop Ogbureke  4 , Issiaka Sombie  4
Affiliations
Review

COVID-19 pandemic waves: how prepared is West Africa for managing a high COVID-19 caseload? Urgent actions needed

Virgil Kuassi Lokossou et al. Pan Afr Med J. .

Abstract

The ECOWAS Region and the world have learnt a lot in the last year and a half concerning the pandemic. As the pandemic continues to evolve, the region needs to put together all these lessons in other to better protect its people, rebuild its economy and strengthen the regional health security for better regional prosperity. We reviewed the response mounted by the region from January 2020 to July 2021 and the existing body of knowledge. We recommend that the region quickly increase the COVID-19 immunization coverage, sustain the enhance genomic surveillance, improve testing and the strengthen point of entry surveillance.

Keywords: COVID-19; genomic surveillance; vaccination; waves.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
the distribution of the different variants of COVID-19 in the ECOWAS Region as at July 2021
Figure 2
Figure 2
the weekly evolution of COVID-19 cases in West Africa
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Loembé MM, Tshangela A, Salyer SJ, Varma JK, Ouma AEO, Nkengasong JN. COVID-19 in Africa: the spread and response. Nat Med. 2020 Jul;26(7):999–1003. - PubMed
    1. Aiyar Y, Chandru V, Chatterjee M, Desai S, Fernandez A, Gupta A, et al. India´s resurgence of COVID-19: urgent actions needed. Lancet. 2021 Jun 12;397(10291):2232–2234. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Taylor L. Covid-19: How the Brazil variant took hold of South America. BMJ. 2021 May 20;373:n1227. - PubMed
    1. Baum F, Freeman T, Musolino C, Abramovitz M, De Ceukelaire W, Flavel J, et al. Explaining covid-19 performance: what factors might predict national responses? BMJ. 2021 Jan 28;372:n91. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Loembé MM, Nkengasong JN. COVID-19 vaccine access in Africa: Global distribution, vaccine platforms, and challenges ahead. Immunity. 2021 Jul 13;54(7):1353–1362. - PMC - PubMed