Page 119 - IJPS-10-1

International Journal of
Population Studies Migration and mobility data in COVID-19 response

in June 2020 (Brima, 2021; Ogbolosingha & Singh, 2020). 3.2. Availability and accessibility of mobility and
The Republic of Kenya set up the National Emergency migration data for COVID-19 response in EAC
Response Committee on Coronavirus (NERC), which was Traditional data sources for migration and mobility,
a multisectoral and multi-ministerial forum, in February including administrative data, census, and surveys, are
2020, following a Presidential Executive Order (Republic potentially useful in COVID-19 management. This study
of Kenya, 2020a). The Ministry of Health of Kenya was sought to establish if any of the EAC member states applied
the lead agency in the response plan and set out several these data sources to inform the COVID-19 preparedness.
guidelines on the management of COVID-19 in the Ideally, the countries would use such data to monitor
country (Wangari et al., 2021; Republic of Kenya, 2020b).
the populations at risk, especially the migrant or mobile
The Republic of Uganda constituted a National Task populations, or in the provision of services to the migrant
Force to combat COVID-19, in March 2020, that launched and displaced populations in the region.
the Uganda National COVID-19 Preparedness and
Response Plan, with the Ministry of Health of Uganda Administrative data collected at border points – land,
as a lead agency, while the Office of the Prime Minister sea, or air – is a potential source of information on who is
provided the overall policy guidance. The Task Force was getting into and out of the respective members state coupled
tasked to manage all aspects of COVID-19, including with their COVID-19 status, including if tested positive for
case management, health sector responses, community the coronavirus or not. The review of member state websites
engagement strategies, funding and resource mobilization, and relevant ministries did not return any confirmation of
and surveillance and laboratory responses. Uganda drew the use of administrative data in COVID-19 management.
on the previous experience in handling the Ebola epidemic One potential source reviewed was the One Stop Border
in the country and activated the subnational surveillance Post (OSPB) initiative, which captures daily updates of
teams as part of the response plan to the COVID-19 cross-border movements within the EAC region, but a
pandemic (Republic of Uganda, 2020; Sarki et al., 2020). study commented that the data sharing infrastructure used
by OSPB was highly complex, prompting paper-based data
The Government of Rwanda set up a National Task collection (Nugent & Soi, 2020).
Force bringing together several government agencies,
that launched the Rwanda Coronavirus Disease National A second data source for migration data is the decennial
Preparedness and Response Plan from March to August 2020 population census, which collects migration data based
(Republic of Rwanda, 2020). Part of the response included on residence within national administrative units, as well
setting up a COVID-19 Incident Management System (IMS) as demographic information on migrants, such as age,
as well as building national capacities for prevention, prompt sex, marital status, education level, and occupation. Two
detection and enhanced surveillance at community, and port studies identified in the reviewed literature demonstrate
of entry and health facilities (Republic of Rwanda, 2020:12). how census data could be useful in modeling the spread
Although “migration and mobility data” are not referenced of COVID-19 in Kenya. In the first study, Macharia et al.
in the National Response Plan, the data could be collected as (2020) used census data to model the social vulnerability
part of the “port of entry” surveillance system. Rwanda has index for subnational regions in Kenya to determine how
been commended for the innovative approaches rolled out effectively they could handle the COVID-19 pandemic. The
as part of the COVID-19 response, such as using robots for study showed that subnational units with higher poverty
screening and inpatient care, using drones for distribution of indices and with few social amenities would have weaker
medical supplies, implementing a robust public information institutional capacity to tackle COVID-19. Based on their
strategy that leveraged on the experiences in managing Ebola model, COVID-19 cases in Kenya were concentrated in
in 2018–2019, and using the Integrated Disease Surveillance the capital city, urbanized areas, and border towns, and the
and Response (IDSR) framework (WHO/AFRO, 2021; authors recommended that a vulnerability mapping would
Karim, 2021; Republic of Rwanda, 2020). help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in these regions.
The study observation that COVID-19 spread faster in the
Comparatively, the Tanzanian government set up a
COVID-19 Task Force in May 2021 to review the country’s urbanized areas and border towns shows the close nexus
between the national migration patterns and the spread of
response to COVID. This delayed response is attributed to the pandemic in Kenya, as observed in earlier studies, that
a presidential directive issued in May 2020 that resulted in migrants preferred to move to the capital city, urbanized
Tanzania not giving daily updates of COVID-19 cases in areas and in towns located along the international borders
the country as reported in various media sources .
1
(Muyonga et al., 2021). The second study demonstrates
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Tanzania how census data can be used to model the diffusion of
(accessed on February 8, 2022) COVID-19 in Kenya. In the study, Brand et al. (2020) used

Volume 10 Issue 1 (2024) 113 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.357