Spatiotemporal patterns and trends of community transmission of the pandemic COVID-19 in South Asia: Bangladesh as a case study

Abstract

South Asian (SA) countries have been fighting with the pandemic novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) since January 2020. Earlier, the country-specific descriptive study has been done. Nevertheless, as transboundary infection, the border sharing, shared cultural and behaviour practice, effects on the temporal and spatial distribution of COVID-19 in SA is still unveiled. Therefore, this study has been revealed the spatial hotspot along with descriptive output on different parameters of COVID-19 infection. We extracted data from the WHO and the worldometer database from the onset of the outbreak up to 15 May 2020. Europe has the highest case fatality rate (CFR; 9.22%), whereas Oceania has the highest (91.15%) recovery rate from COVID-19. Among SA countries, India has the highest number of cases (85,790), followed by Pakistan (38,799) and Bangladesh (20,065). However, the number of tests conducted was minimum in this region in comparison with other areas. The highest CFR was recorded in India (3.21%) among SA countries, whereas Nepal and Bhutan had no death record due to COVID-19 so far. The recovery rate varies from 4.75% in the Maldives to 51.02% in Sri Lanka. In Bangladesh, community transmission has been recorded, and the highest number of cases were detected in Dhaka, followed by Narayanganj and Chattogram. Dhaka and its surrounding districts, Faridpur and Madaripur district of Bangladesh, is in the hotspot on the spatiotemporal tendency. But no cold spot was pointed out in Bangladesh. Three hotspots and three cold spots at different confidence levels were detected in India. Findings from this study suggested the “test, trace, and isolation” approach for earlier detection of infection to prevent further community transmission of COVID-19.

Exploring the behavioral determinants of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among an urban population in Bangladesh: Implications for behavior change interventions

“…Between 8 March 2020 and 13 June 2021, there were 567,668 COVID-19 confirmed cases and 7,294 reported death in Dhaka [ 4 ]. While Dhaka makes up about 6.29% of the total population of Bangladesh, almost 69% of the COVID-19 cases in Bangladesh were reported in Dhaka as of 13 June (59.0% in Dhaka city alone) [ 4 ] making it one of the largest hotspots of COVID-19 [ 38 ].…”

Assessment of basic reproduction number (R0), spatial and temporal epidemiological determinants, and genetic characterization of SARS-CoV-2 in Bangladesh

“…It is tough to inform them about the COVID-19 pandemic threat and impossible to maintain social distancing in their dwelling areas ( BBS, 2011 ). Therefore, there was a high chance of community transmission in contrast to another town of Bangladesh ( Islam et al, 2020 ). Additionally, almost 80–90% of air travelers use the airport in Dhaka for home and abroad travel.…”

“…Many susceptible travelers denied institutional quarantine and travelled to their home city. It may be a cause of enhancing the COVID-19 transmission in Dhaka city ( Islam et al, 2020 ). It is believed that community transmission in the rural community resulted from the free movement of infected persons.…”

“…The case fatality rate of COVID-19 was 2.3% in China ( Novel, 2020 ), 2–3% in India ( Singhal, 2020 ), and 7.2% in Italy ( Onder et al, 2020 ), whereas the recovery rate was 46% in European countries ( Karadag, 2020 ). Moreover, men were more affected than women in China ( Yang et al, 2020 ) and some other countries of South Asia ( Islam et al, 2020 ).…”

Spatial statistical analysis of pre-existing mortalities of 20 diseases with COVID-19 mortalities in the continental United States

“…However, CFR had a more focused distribution (higher Z-score) compared to MR. Several international studies have analyzed the spatial distribution of COVID-19 CFR/MR. Islam et al (2020) examined Spatio-temporal variations of COVID-19 mortality rate among different age and gender groups in India using Getis-Ord Gi* as of May 15, 2020. They identified a hotspot with a 99 % confidence interval, located at the central portions of this country.…”