COVID-19 Epidemic in Algeria: Assessment of the implemented preventive strategy

Abstract

Since the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in China, several preventive strategies have been implemented worldwide to fight against the spread of SARS-CoV-2, in Algeria the control actions have been mainly social distancing, movement's restriction, quarantine and lockdown.In order to assess the preventive strategy adopted in Algeria, we studied three zones (whole country, the main outbreak at Blida, and whole country except Blida), we used as a indicator the basic reproduction number R0, we compared the mean R0-before and R0-after the implementation of the mitigation measures using bivariate analysis, then we used the results we found to estimate the number of COVID-19 cases avoided by these measures, then after, we predicted the peak of the epidemic's first wave.We note that the decrease in R0 after the preventive measures implementation was statistically significant (p value<10 -4 ) in the three areas, thus, the preventive strategy in Algeria has been effective in its entirety. Our projection revealed that 15613 cases of COVID-19 were avoided in 14 days (from April 6, to April 19, 2020) in the whole country, and 1747 cases were prevented in Blida during the same period. We estimate that the peak of the first wave of the epidemic in Algeria will be reached with herd immunity of 15.93% as of November 2020, however, at least 56% of people with protective immunity would be needed to be sufficient to avoid a second wave. The used method to carry out the evaluation has given us a good overview, but, R0 is not the only factor to consider when estimating the burden of the epidemic, to do that, the number of daily admissions to intensive care units and hospitalizations remain good indicators.In order to better the epidemic control in Algeria, it is possible to act on contact efficacy rate by adding an instruction to wear medical mask by ordinary population outside, this measure has been reported to be effective in some countries.To conclude, it is good to keep in mind that a new way of life based on good hygiene habits and social distancing must therefore be in place and adopted by the population for at least several months, otherwise the demand for health care will exceed the availability.

Time Course of COVID-19 Pandemic in Algeria: Retrospective Estimate of the Actual Burden

“…The number of new confirmed cases is raising since the first case declaration on February 25, 2020, consequently, the deaths too (Figures 1 and 2). As it was warned in advance [15], we see that the main outbreak is moving from Blida (1372 cumulative cases) to other cities like; Algiers (1212 cumulative cases), Setif (756 cumulative cases) and Oran (678 cumulative cases) (data of June 14, 2020) [8].…”

“…Nevertheless, the value has stabilized around 1 over time (Figure 4). This is very likely to be related to the reporting variation at the beginning, then, to the effectiveness of the preventive measures implemented since March 23, 2020 [8,15]. From May 8, 2020, the daily R0 was mostly around 1, its reduction of 31 % between the last two months (from 1,41 (95% CI 1.26-1.56) (April 16 to May 15) to 0.97 (95% CI 0.93-1.0) (May 16 to June 14)) is a good sign of good control actions (Figure 4).…”

“…The previously mentioned examples show that, the cumulative incidence of infections in Algeria, may be higher than 0,2%, even if it is the case, the herd immunity appears insufficient to avoid a second wave if all control measures are released by the end of the lockdown. It is also possible that the cumulative incidence is low because of the strong measures that the government has implemented since March 23, 2020 [15].…”

“…In the descriptive part of the study, we presented graphically the reported daily and cumulative COVID-19 cases and deaths (Figures 1-3). In addition, based on reported and confirmed cases with RT-PCR [8], we computed the daily R0 and its evolution using the method described in a previous studies [14,15], while we used the serial interval value SI=4.4 days (Figure 4) [16].…”

“…This study was carried out using Excel 2013 and STATA/IC 15 software. We also used the Alg-COVID-19 Model established in a previous study to estimate the R0 [14,15].…”