Evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic over six weeks in four French-speaking countries in West Africa

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented international health crisis with different approaches to the response at country levels. The objective of this study was to analyze the evolution of this pandemic in Guinea, Mali, Senegal, and Burkina Faso over the first six weeks. We hypothesize that there exist significant differences in the incidence of COVID-19 between countries. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted as part of a collaborative project. Data collection focused on the epidemiological surveillance indicators available in the countries’ COVID-19 daily situation reports. Data were entered into a standardized Microsoft Excel spreadsheet which was exported to the STATA 15 software for analysis. Results COVID-19 had a different dynamic in the four countries over the first six weeks. Its incidence in Burkina Faso and Senegal was dropping, while it was increasing slowly in Mali; only in Guinea, it increased rapidly. The analysis of variance revealed that the differences observed in the weekly COVID-19 incidence in the four countries were statistically significant (p ˂ 0.01). Different screening approaches have been used by the four countries. Guinea (n = 4,539) performed more tests compared to Senegal (n = 2,961), Burkina Faso (n = 2,455) and Mali (n = 2,397). The positivity rates were significantly higher in Mali (25.5%) and Burkina Faso (23.7%) than in Guinea (19.0%) and Senegal (9.5%) (p ˂ 0.0001). Hospitalization rates by country ranged from 32.0–79.6%, with Guinea’s hospitalization rate (79.6%) being significantly higher as compared to that of the three other countries (p ˂ 0.0001). The cure rates were significantly higher in Burkina Faso (61.4%) and Senegal (61.1%) than in Mali (37.3%) and Guinea (19.7%) (p ˂ 0.0001). The case fatality rate was significantly higher in Burkina Faso (6.5%) than in Mali (5.2%) (p ˂ 0.001), Guinea (0.7%), and Senegal (0.7%) (p ˂ 0.0001). Conclusion This study highlighted insights from COVID-19 surveillance data, as a basis for improving response strategies in the four countries. Large-scale screening seems relevant to not only facilitate controlling the disease spread but also reducing case fatality rates by early case detection, prior to the occurrence of complications.