Since the inception of the novel Corona Virus Disease-19 in December in China, the spread has been massive leading World Health Organization to declare it a world pandemic. While epicenter of COVID-19 was Wuhan city in China mainland, Italy has been affected most due to the high number of recorded deaths as at 21st April, 2020 at the same time USA recording the highest number of virus reported cases. In addition, the spread has been experienced in many developing African countries including Kenya. The Kenyan government need to make necessary plans for those who have tested positive through self-quarantine beds at Mbagathi Hospital as a way of containing the spread of the virus. In addition, lack of a proper mathematical model that can be used to model and predict the spread of COVID-19 for adequate response security has been one of the main concerns for the government. Many mathematical models have been proposed for proper modeling and forecasting, but this paper will focus on using a generalized linear regression that can detect linear relationship between the risk factors. The paper intents to model and forecast the confirmed COVID-19 cases in Kenya as a Compound Poisson regression process where the parameter follows a generalized linear regression that is influenced by the number of daily contact persons and daily flights with the already confirmed cases of the virus. Ultimately, this paper would assist the government in proper resource allocation to deal with pandemic in terms of available of bed capacities, public awareness campaigns and virus testing kits not only in the virus hotbed within Nairobi capital city but also in the other 47 Kenyan counties.

This study considered the modeling of systematic mortality risk for populations with finite data using the Poisson incorporated Credibility regression model. For novelty, we have included the credibility regression approach to modelling mortality by assuming the number of annual deaths follow a Poisson distribution. Our model shows improvement in precision levels when estimating mortality risk compared to classical models used in European countries. We have illustrated that our model works optimally when using Kenyan mortality data, comparing male and female lives under the different strategies, thus making better predictions than the classical Lee–Carter (LC) and Cairns–Blake–Dowd (CBD) models. The mean absolute forecast error (MAFE), mean absolute percentage forecast error (MAPFE), root mean square error (RMSE), and root mean square forecast error (RMSFE) under the incorporated credibility regression model are much lower than the values obtained without incorporation of the Buhlmann credibility approach. The findings of this research will help insurance companies, pension firms, and government agencies in sub-Saharan countries model and forecast systematic mortality risks accurately. Finally, the results are essential in actuarial modelling and pricing, thus making life assurance products affordable for most people in low-income African countries.

The increase in health research in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has led to a high demand for biostatisticians to develop study designs, contribute and apply statistical methods in data analyses. Initiatives exist to address the dearth in statistical capacity and lack of local biostatisticians in SSA health projects. The Sub-Saharan African Consortium for Advanced Biostatistics (SSACAB) led by African institutions was initiated to improve biostatistical capacity according to the needs identified by African institutions, through collaborative masters and doctoral training in biostatistics. SACCAB has created a critical mass of biostatisticians and a network of institutions over the last five years and has strengthened biostatistics resources and capacity for health research studies in SSA.  SSACAB comprises 11 universities and four research institutions which are supported by four European universities.  In 2015, only four universities had established Masters programmes in biostatistics and SSACAB supported the remaining seven to develop Masters programmes. In 2019 the University of the Witwatersrand became the first African institution to gain Royal Statistical Society accreditation for a Biostatistics Masters programme. A total of 150 fellows have been awarded scholarships to date of which 123 are Masters fellowships (41 female) of whom 58 have already graduated. Graduates have been employed in African academic (19) and research (15) institutions and 10 have enrolled for PhD studies. A total of 27 (10 female) PhD fellowships have been awarded; 4 of them are due to graduate by 2020. To date, SSACAB Masters and PhD students have published 17 and 31 peer-reviewed articles, respectively. SSACAB has also facilitated well-attended conferences, face-to-face and online short courses. Pooling of limited biostatistics resources in SSA combined with co-funding from external partners has shown to be an effective strategy for the development and teaching of advanced biostatistics methods, supervision and mentoring of PhD candidates.

Claims reserving for general insurance business has developed significantly over the recent past. There has always been a slight mystery in short-term insurance contracts of how to go about reserving for claims, which have not yet come in, and are still in some sense of figment of the future. Insurance claims variables are non-normally distributed and therefore a measure that will capture the dependence among the variables better than the usual correlation is employed. One such method is the use of copulas. The object of this paper, therefore, is to use the Archimedean copula, Clayton copula and Frank copula to estimate outstanding incurred but not reported (IBNR) claim reserves. A comparison of the estimates of outstanding claim reserves obtained from different Archimedean copulas is also presented.

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