A model of COVID-19 pandemic evolution in African countries

Kossi Amouzouvi; Kétévi A Assamagan; Somiéalo Azote; Simon H Connell; Jean Baptiste Fankam Fankam; Fenosoa Fanomezana; Aluwani Guga; Cyrille E Haliya; Toivo S Mabote; Francisco Fenias Macucule; Dephney Mathebula; Azwinndini Muronga; Kondwani C C Mwale; Ann Njeri; Ebode F Onyie; Laza Rakotondravohitra; George Zimba

doi:10.1016/j.sciaf.2021.e00987

A model of COVID-19 pandemic evolution in African countries

Sci Afr. 2021 Nov:14:e00987. doi: 10.1016/j.sciaf.2021.e00987. Epub 2021 Sep 26.

Authors

Kossi Amouzouvi¹, Kétévi A Assamagan², Somiéalo Azote³, Simon H Connell⁴, Jean Baptiste Fankam Fankam⁵, Fenosoa Fanomezana⁶, Aluwani Guga⁷, Cyrille E Haliya⁸, Toivo S Mabote⁹, Francisco Fenias Macucule⁹, Dephney Mathebula¹⁰, Azwinndini Muronga⁷, Kondwani C C Mwale¹¹, Ann Njeri¹², Ebode F Onyie⁵, Laza Rakotondravohitra¹³, George Zimba¹⁴

Affiliations

¹ Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana.
² Brookhaven National Laboratory, Physics Department, Upton, New York, USA.
³ Université de Lomé, Département de Physique, Lomé, Togo.
⁴ University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa.
⁵ University of Yaounde I, Department of Physics, Yaounde, Cameroon.
⁶ University of Antananarivo, Madagascar.
⁷ Nelson Mandela University, South Africa.
⁸ University of Abomey-Calavi, International Chair in Mathematical Physics and Applications, Cotonou, Benin.
⁹ Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Grupo de Astrofȡsica e Ciências Espaciais, Maputo, Mozambique.
¹⁰ University of Venda, Applied Mathematics and Mathematics Department, South Africa.
¹¹ University of Rwanda, African Center of Excellence for Innovative Teaching and Learning Science, Kigali, Rwanda.
¹² University of Manchester, UK.
¹³ Duke University Medical Center, USA.
¹⁴ University of Jyväskylä, Department of Physics, Jyväskylä, Finland.

Abstract

We studied the COVID-19 pandemic evolution in selected African countries. For each country considered, we modeled simultaneously the data of the active, recovered and death cases. In this study, we used a year of data since the first cases were reported. We estimated the time-dependent basic reproduction numbers, $R_{0}$ , and the fractions of infected but unaffected populations, to offer insights into containment and vaccine strategies in African countries. We found that $R_{0} \leq 4$ at the start of the pandemic but has since fallen to $R_{0} \sim 1$ . The unaffected fractions of the populations studied vary between $1 - 10$ % of the recovered cases.

Keywords: Basic reproduction number; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; SIDARTHE.