Predicting COVID-19 spread and public health needs to contain the pandemic in West-Africa
2020
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is causing devastating demographic, social, and economic damage globally.
Understanding current patterns of the pandemic spread and forecasting its long-term trajectory is essential in guiding policies
aimed at curtailing the pandemic. This is particularly important in regions with weak economies and fragile health care
systems such as West-Africa. We formulate and use a deterministic compartmental model to (i) assess the current patterns
of COVID-19 spread in West-Africa, (ii) evaluate the impact of currently implemented control measures, and (iii) predict the
future course of the pandemic with and without currently implemented and additional control measures in West-Africa. An
analytical expression for the threshold level of control measures (involving a reduction in the effective contact rate) required
to eliminate the pandemic is computed. Considering currently applied health control measures, numerical simulations of the
model using baseline parameter values estimated from West-African COVID-19 data project a 60% reduction in the daily
number of cases when the epidemic attains its peak. More reduction in the number of cases will be achieved if additional
public health control measures that result in a reduction in the effective contact rate are implemented. We found out that disease
elimination is difficult when more asymptomatic individuals contribute in transmission or are not identified and isolated in a
timely manner. However, maintaining a baseline level of asymptomatic isolation and a low transmission rate will lead to a
significant reduction in the number of daily cases when the pandemic peaks. For example, at the baseline level of asymptomatic
isolation, at least a 53% reduction in the transmission rate is required for disease elimination, while disease elimination is also
possible if asymptomatic individuals are identified and isolated within 2 days (after the incubation period). Combining two or
more measures is better for disease control, e.g., if asymptomatic humans are contact traced or identified and isolated in less
than 3 days then only about a 31% reduction in the disease transmission rate is required for disease elimination. Furthermore,
we showed that the currently implemented measures caused the time-dependent effective reproduction number to reduce by
approximately 37% from February 28, to August 24, 2020. We conclude that COVID-19 elimination requires more control
measures than what is currently being applied inWest-Africa and that mass testing and contact tracing in order to identify and
isolate asymptomatic individuals early is very important in curtailing the burden of the pandemic.
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