Modeling the Transmission Dynamics of COVID-19 Among Five High Burden African Countries

Abstract

Background: Today, coronavirus disease-19 has left a permanent dark mark on the history of human beings. The ongoing global pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 has spread to 58 African countries, with over 6.07 million confirmed cases and over 151,412 deaths. The five high burden African countries are South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Libya, with case fatality rates (CFR) of nearly 0.15%, 0.042%, 0.22%, 0.006%, and 0.086%, respectively. This is why the research aims to adequately understand the transmission dynamics of the virus and its variants in five high-burden African countries. Methods: Our study is a deterministic model, where the population is partitioned into five components on the epidemiological state of the individuals. We presented a year-structured susceptible, infected, mild severs, critical severe, and recover (SIMCR) compartmental model of COVID-19 disease transmission with incidence rate during the pandemic period. Results: The number of susceptible individuals increased by 30,711,930 in South Africa, 5,919,837 in Morocco, 3,485,020 in Tunisia, 7,833,642 in Ethiopia, and 2,145,404 in Libya in the next 3 decades with compare to the unvaccinated population and the number of infected individuals decreased by 30,479,271 in South Africa, 19,809,751 in Morocco, 3,456,406 in Tunisia, 7,761,993 in Ethiopia, and 2,125,038 in Libya. Conclusion: SIMCR model is used to describe the transmission of COVID-19 among five high-burden African countries. For the next 30 years, we will have around 86 million infected individuals and millions of death only in those five African countries. To reduce those problems, vaccination is the best and most effective mechanism. So vaccinating half of the populations in those countries helps to control and reduce the transmission rate of COVID-19 in Africa for the next 30 years. This leads to preventing 17,212,405 people from becoming infected and millions of deaths being reduced in those five high-burden African countries.