Page 7 - IJPS-6-2

International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE

COVID-19 and socioeconomic

development in Africa: The first 6

months (February 2020-August 2020)

M. Michel Garenne 1,2,3,4 *

1 Senior Fellow, FERDI, Université d’Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
2 Institut Pasteur, Épidémiologie des Maladies Émergentes, Paris, France
3 Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), UMI Résiliences, Bondy, France
4 MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit, School of Public
Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Abstract: The study covers the first 6 months of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
epidemics in 56 African countries (February 2020-August 2020). It links epidemiological
parameters (incidence, case fatality) with demographic parameters (population density,
ARTICLE INFO urbanization, population concentration, fertility, mortality, and age structure), with economic
Received: March 23, 2020 parameters (gross domestic product [GDP] per capita, air transport), and with public health
Accepted: May 13, 2020 parameters (medical density). Epidemiological data are cases and deaths reported to the World
Published: May 18, 2020 Health Organization, and other variables come from databases of the United Nations agencies.
Results show that COVID-19 spread fairly rapidly in Africa, although slower than in the rest of
*CORRESPONDING AUTHOR the world: In 3 months, all countries were affected, and in 6 months, approximately 1.1 million
M. Michel Garenne, people (0.1% of the population) were diagnosed positive for COVID-19. The dynamics of the
Institut Pasteur, epidemic were fairly regular between April and July, with a net reproduction rate R = 1.35,
0
Unité d’Epidémiologie des but tended to slow down afterward, when R fell below 1.0 at the end of July. Differences in
0
Maladies Emergentes, incidence were very large between countries and were correlated primarily with population
25 rue du Dr. Roux, density and urbanization, and to a lesser extent, with GDP per capita and population age
75015 Paris, France.
Michel.Garenne@pasteur.fr structure. Differences in case fatality were smaller and correlated primarily with mortality
level. Overall, Africa appeared very heterogeneous, with some countries severely affected
CITATION while others very little.
Garenne MM. (2020). Keywords: COVID-19; Demographic transition; Health transition; Economic
COVID-19 and socioeconomic
development in Africa: The development; Africa
first 6 months (February
2020-August 2020). 1. Introduction
International Journal of
Population Studies, 6(2):1-14. For most infectious diseases, the relationships between disease prevalence, incidence or
doi: 10.18063/ijps.v6i2.1222
mortality, and the level of economic and social development are negative. The more advanced
Copyright: © 2020 a country is in economic development and in the demographic transition, the more effective
Garenne. This is an Open it is in controlling infectious diseases, and the less frequent and the less fatal are infectious
Access article distributed
under the terms of the diseases (Preston, 1976). However, this is not always the case for emerging diseases. The
Creative Commons case of HIV/AIDS struck people’s minds in the early years of the epidemic: The more
Attribution-Non Commercial advanced countries were often more affected, such as the United States on the American
4.0 International License
(http://creativecommons.org/ continent or South Africa on the African continent (WHO database, 2020). In addition, at the
licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting micro-level (at the individual level), in the first phase of the epidemic, HIV/AIDS was more
all noncommercial use, prevalent among wealthier, more educated, more urban people than among others, whether
distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the in Europe, America, or Africa (Fortson, 2008; Mishra, Assche, Greener, et al., 2007). The
original work is properly cited. situation changed with the maturation of the epidemic, and in Africa in particular, a reversal

International Journal of Population Studies | 2020, Volume 6, Issue 2 1