COVID-19: Why has Africa been “Spared”?

Abstract

After more than one year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the disaster predicted in Africa by experts has not occurred. The present review aimed to discuss factors which may have played an important role in this low incidence. The analysis of data provided by the WHO database and the ECDC (European Center for Disease Prevention and Control) was made. Using explicit reasoning and existing data, the most significant factors were listed and discussed. We found that Africa had the lowest percentage of COVID-19 cases per population (0.33%) and various factors such as rapid reactions, effective preventive measures, demographics, the impact of previous epidemics, genetic and immunity factors may have played an important role in this low incidence of the pandemic in Africa. It appears that Africa is globally less affected. Most of the factors discussed may have played an important role, but the genetic hypothesis and the potential undercount of cases, less studied to date, should be investigated.

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