Page 114 - IJPS-10-1

International Journal of

Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Use of migration and mobility data in COVID-19

response: Evidence from the East Africa
Community region

Mary Kalerwa Muyonga*

Population Studies and Research Institute, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
(This article belongs to Special Issue: Population and Reproductive Health Dynamics under
COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa)

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to unprecedented challenges to global health and
mobility. A valuable lesson from this recent pandemic is that migration statistics can
be relied on to illuminate the spread of an epidemic and model diffusion patterns
once a highly contagious virus is detected in a country. This study reviews literature
published between 2020 and 2021, giving insights into the generation and use of
migration and mobility data in COVID-19 response in the East Africa Community
(EAC). The reviewed studies regarding the EAC Regional COVID-19 Response Plan all
point to the need for timely data, but do not specify requirements for mobility and
migration statistics. Several studies featured in this review propounded innovative
ways to obtain and use the data in COVID-19 modeling. The study concludes that
there is potential for use of migration statistics in future pandemic response plans
*Corresponding author: and recommends that the EAC mainstreams migration statistics within the pandemic
Mary Kalerwa Muyonga response processes.
(mary.kalerwa@gmail.com)
Citation: Muyonga, M.K. (2024).
Use of migration and mobility data Keywords: COVID-19; Migration; Mobility; Data; East Africa Community; Africa
in COVID-19 response: Evidence
from the East Africa Community
region. International Journal of
Population Studies, 10(1):108-119.
https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.357 1. Introduction
Received: September 19, 2022 As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic started to take hold of the world
Accepted: December 1, 2023 in December 2019, no one has anticipated the unprecedented effects that it brought
on global health and mobility, which confirm the inextricable connection between
Published Online: December 28, 2023
migration, health, and human mobility. The first confirmed case of COVID-19 was
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s). recorded in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and the virus responsible for this infectious
This is an Open-Access article disease, called the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), had
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution swiftly swept the globe. In Africa, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Egypt in
License, permitting distribution, February 2020 and later that same month in Nigeria.
and reproduction in any medium,
which provided that the original The first cases of the COVID-19 in the East African Community (EAC) region
work is properly cited. were reported in March 2020 in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda
Publisher’s Note: AccScience (Musanabaganwam et, al., 2021; Habonimana et al., 2020; Republic of Health Kenya,
Publishing remains neutral with 2020a; Olum & Bongomin, 2020; Tarimo & Wu, 2020). The immediate response was

regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional a raft of containment measures to limit human mobility evidenced by the closure of
affiliations. international borders and restriction of movement within national borders. While Kenya,

Volume 10 Issue 1 (2024) 108 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.357