B y the end of October 2020, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic had spread to 6 continents and caused >45 million coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases and 1.1 million deaths (1). Despite having 15.6% of the worldwide population (2), by October 31, 2020, Africa had only 3.9% (1.76 million) of the world's COVID-19 cases and 3.6% (42,233) of deaths during the pandemic (1). Data suggest that the pandemic is evolving differently in sub-Saharan Africa compared with the rest of the world and that the outbreak started later (3).Of note, severe COVID-19 cases seem to occur less frequently in Africa than in the rest of the world (4). Several factors have been proposed to explain this. Age is likely a major factor because older persons are at higher risk for severe disease, but Africa has an extremely young population; >60% of persons are <25 years of age (5). However, variation of CO-VID-19 severity with age alone does not fully explain the observed differences (4). Clinical cases and deaths in Africa likely are underreported because systematic surveillance is limited and no systematic death registration exists; thus, the true SARS-CoV-2 burden probably is underestimated (4). Nevertheless, local health systems in Africa, which have a lower capacity to deal with COVID-19 patients than healthcare systems in high-resource settings, were not overwhelmed, even at the peak of the epidemic (6). Although potential
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.