The Epidemiological Situation at the End of June 2020
The first cases in the ECOWAS zone were identified on 28 February 2020 in Nigeria, followed by Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Ghana during the month of March. Measured according to identified case rates, there are three groups of countries: Nigeria and Ghana with more than 10,000 registered cases, followed by Senegal, Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire with 5,000 cases, and the rest of the ECOWAS countries with fewer than 1,000 cases (Fig. 1). Deaths caused by the virus, which have been few in Africa, remain below 100 in all countries except Nigeria.
During the month of April, all seven countries were registering many cases and entering an ascending phase (see Additional files 1 for a figure with a country-specific scale). At the end of April, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal entered an intense ascending epidemic phase, while Burkina Faso and Niger reached their peak (Fig. 2). Since the beginning of May, the epidemics in Burkina Faso and Niger have begun to decline, based on the number of reported cases. By mid-June, both countries had several consecutive days with zero cases detected. In mid-June, Guinea and Senegal appeared to have reached a plateau, but both countries still have a significant daily number of cases. However, Benin and Côte d'Ivoire showed a very different pattern, with a doubling of cases every three days. While for Benin, it is important to put this situation into perspective as the number of cases remains low (Fig. 2 uses the same scale for the seven countries), for Côte d'Ivoire, the situation is more complex to analyse.
During the same period, COVID-19 attack rates ranged from less than 10 per 100,000 inhabitants (Benin) to more than 45 per 100,000 inhabitants (Guinea). The three Sahelian countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger) have the highest case-fatality rates. In Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, the case-fatality rate remains low, but the epidemic has not yet started to decline by the end of June 2020. Guinea and Benin have comparatively lower rates (Table 1 and Fig. 3).
Table 1
Attack rate and Case Fatality rate of COVID-19 (end of February to end of June 2020)
|
Burkina Faso
|
Ivory Coast
|
Senegal
|
Benin
|
Niger
|
Mali
|
Guinea
|
Attack rate per
100,000 population
|
4,69
|
37,15
|
41,90
|
9,64
|
4,44
|
10,76
|
45,36
|
Case fatality rate
|
5,40
|
0,71
|
1,70
|
1,75
|
6,23
|
5,31
|
0,61
|
All of these results depend, however, on the detection of cases, and therefore on the number of tests performed, which is highly variable (Table 2). In Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, the low number of tests, which are only possible to perform in some regional capitals, probably explains a higher case-fatality rate than elsewhere. However, it should be noted that testing data are not always available at sub-national level and have only been available since the end of March in most of the countries. Benin is a special case as it is the only country to have been forced to revise its COVID-19 statistics. On 19th May, the country was in fact asked to revise the figures for positive cases from 339 to 130 because 209 people had been declared positive with a rapid diagnostic test (RDT), which the WHO did not recognize as valid.
Table 2
Number of PCR tests per 100,000 inhabitants as of 15 June, 2020
Burkina Faso
|
Ivory Coast
|
Senegal
|
Benin
|
Niger
|
Mali
|
Guinea
|
29,14
|
111,29
|
284,83
|
38,66
|
41,50
|
126,08
|
124,22
|
The spatiotemporal analysis shows three temporal phases of clusters of the incidence of COVID-19. This analysis complements Fig. 2 and specifies the most intense periods of the epidemic in each of the seven African countries. The relative risk calculated for each cluster illustrates the risk of occurrence of COVID-19 in a given country. The relative risk is particularly high in Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Benin. The analysis confirms a later epidemic phase in Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea and Senegal.
Table 3
Cluster
|
Country
|
Date first cluster
|
Cluster end date
|
Relative risk over the period
|
1
|
Burkina Faso
|
14/03/2020
|
14/04/2020
|
3.53
|
1
|
Niger
|
14/03/2020
|
14/04/2020
|
3.53
|
1
|
Mali
|
14/03/2020
|
14/04/2020
|
3.53
|
1
|
Benin
|
14/03/2020
|
14/04/2020
|
3.53
|
2
|
Ivory Coast
|
07/06/2020
|
30/06/2020
|
1.49
|
3
|
Guinea
|
21/04/2020
|
02/06/2020
|
1.38
|
3
|
Senegal
|
21/04/2020
|
02/06/2020
|
1.38
|
State responses to the pandemic
Government measures against the pandemic
All the countries analysed have planned, and subsequently implemented, several government measures, either before or overlapping with the time of diagnosis of the first national cases (Table 4). In Senegal, an extraordinary meeting of the national epidemic management committee was held on 6 January 2020. In Niger, while the first official case was declared on 22 March 2020, the Council of Ministers of 13 March 2020 had already announced strong measures, such as the (not strictly enforced) obligation of a fourteen-day confinement for travellers coming from countries affected by the virus, a ban on gatherings of more than 1000 people and the suspension of official missions to countries affected by the pandemic. In Burkina Faso, the ban on gatherings and the cancellation of national events introduced on 3 March 2020, led to the cancellation of the National Culture Week, an eagerly awaited biennial event.
In each country, in the course of March 2020, we witnessed a rapid implementation of measures to control travellers, in particular with temperature checks at airports. However, these initial state measures did not entirely limit the spread of the virus, as the first cases observed in the countries were mainly imported from outside (by nationals or foreigners), particularly from Europe. The countries quickly responded to the first diagnoses of COVID-19 on their territories by gradually strengthening the measures in place. For example, in Benin, only three days after the first reported case, the country implemented a systematic and mandatory quarantine of all persons entering the country by air, restricted the issuance of entry visas and closed its land borders. Guinea and Senegal formulated even more restrictive responses: both countries have introduced a curfew, facilitated by the declaration of a state of emergency, with varying hours of operation. Nevertheless, none of the countries analysed has yet implemented large scale lockdowns throughout their national territory as has been done elsewhere in the world. However, borders between each region were closed very quickly.
Table 4
Date of First Case and First Significant Government Action in 2020
Country
|
First case
|
Date of measurement
|
Nature of the first significant measure
|
Benin
|
16th March
|
1st March
|
Border temperature control
|
Burkina Faso
|
9th March
|
3rd March
|
Prohibition of national and international events
|
Côte d’Ivoire
|
13th March
|
4th March
|
Establishment of a response plan focusing on epidemiological and biological surveillance, prevention, management of potential patients, information and public awareness of compliance with VIDOC prevention measures-19
|
Guinea
|
12th March
|
25th January
|
Systematic check-ups upon arrival of travellers at International Airport (temperature, hand sanitizer, health questionnaire) and at the port of Conakry.
|
Mali
|
25th March
|
19th March
|
Prohibition of gatherings
Closure of schools and universities
|
Niger
|
21st March
|
13th March
|
Prohibition of gatherings
Self-isolation on return from abroad
|
Senegal
|
2nd March
|
14th March
|
Prohibition of gatherings
|
Following the strengthening of the first measures, the trend towards increased strictness continued into April and partially in May 2020. There has been a significant reinforcement of bans everywhere, which are becoming more and more drastic, despite the fact that the number of cases remains very small and that the trends are not exponential (Fig. 2). It is worth noting the obligation to wear masks, the enforced reduction in the number of people on public transport, the closure of markets etc. (Fig. 2). Compared to Europe, which has been relatively unconcerned by religious practices, the decisions in many Francophone West African countries to close places of worship (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal) in some cases has led to tensions between governments and religious representatives (albeit not in Côte d'Ivoire). For example, in Senegal, the closure was highly contested and the decision was quickly lifted; although some Catholic representatives decided to keep their churches closed, the Muslim community reacted in a heterogeneous way, with many places of worship remaining open. In Mali, on the other hand, where links between the Government and clerics have been highly controversial since 2009, due largely to tense debates on the ‘family code’ in the legal system, and where the government has been discredited by poor management of the recent security crisis, the overwhelming majority of mosques remained open, and many Muslim leaders did not hesitate to speak out against the suspension of prayers in these places of worship. The argument, relayed notably by the radio stations, is that one should not be afraid of illness and therefore ‘attack God’ by not attending prayers. They have argued, on the contrary, that collective prayers help to eradicate the disease. In Guinea, the establishment of two-tier measures has been astonishing: mosques have been closed while markets remain open.
In each country, the management of the first cases and test procedures were organized from an early stage. Governments announced that care would be free for patients, which has seemed to generally be the case. Most countries have been setting up sites or structures specifically dedicated to patient care, although many began by initially centralizing all medical care in capitals and large, densely populated cities. In Côte d'Ivoire, the analysis of diagnostic tests and the treatment of patients was initially carried out only in Abidjan; the university hospital in Bouaké - another important city in the country - was not operational for tests until the end of May 2020, two and a half months after the first case in the country. In Burkina Faso, only the capital and the second largest city in the country initially had treatment centres. In Mali, three public hospitals in the capital were progressively adapted for case management, and two other public hospitals have been subsequently added. In Guinea, the epidemic treatment centres in the interior of the country were not yet operational as of mid-April and the laboratories first able to detect cases were located in Conakry and in Kindia. Senegal has innovated by very quickly organizing contact tracing and management for COVID-19 positive cases, quarantining suspected cases in hotels. However, the country was quickly overwhelmed by the lack of space, and the government was criticized by some hoteliers for not paying for their services. A process of decentralization of care was then organized at the beginning of May for asymptomatic or mild cases in dedicated non-hospital sites located in Dakar, Thies and Mbour. It was then decided at the end of June 2020 to no longer systematically test the contacts of positive cases and to limit the tests to symptomatic and vulnerable persons. The same logic defined the Guinean choices: hospital care was offered at the Donka National Hospital for serious cases, follow-up of positive cases was provided in hotel facilities, and specific care centres were gradually opened.
In this medical response, while the issue of lack of resources (human and material) is chronic in this region of the world, it quickly intensified as the virus gained ground. On 10 April 2020, Mali launched the "one Malian, one mask" programme, and the President of the Republic announced that he had ordered 20 million washable masks. In Guinea, the situation has been more complicated. At the beginning of April 2020, the country started releasing trainees (volunteers and academics) working in the health system, which reduced the production capacity of public care, while increasing the private labour supply in the city. However the country has already demonstrated, in the context of the Ebola crisis, challenges in coordination between very well-provided diagnostic activities and less effective care activities.
Capitals and large cities have not only been the scene of primary care for the sick. In some countries (Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Niger), they were also the target of restrictive measures, as the data on the evolution of the pandemic seemed to show that it particularly affected areas of these countries where large populations are concentrated. For example, in Niger, the wearing of masks in public and para-public services were only made compulsory in Zinder on 5 May and in Niamey, the capital - which has also been subjected to sanitary isolation, mask-wearing has been compulsory in urban transport, markets, supermarkets, shops and public squares since 9 April 2020. In Côte d'Ivoire, the 10 communes of the capital were isolated from the rest of the country on 25 March. Burkina Faso also made the wearing of masks and nose masks compulsory throughout the country, beginning on Monday 27th April 2020. During a visit to the army's sewing factory on Tuesday 21 April 2021, the Prime Minister was assured that this factory, which already produces 5000 masks/day, can multiply its production capacity by three. Many countries have banned travel between regions (Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal) without specific authorization, with an exception for the transport of goods. This is notably the case in Benin where a cordon sanitaire isolating the South from the rest of the country was set up on 30 March 2020.
These measures have sometimes given rise to protest movements, the scale of which varied depending on the context, questioning the veracity of the pandemic, refuting certain state measures considered disproportionate in view of the other health problems that these countries encounter, or denouncing their catastrophic socio-economic repercussions. In Niger, for example, violent demonstrations are taking place in Niamey and in the Zinder region to demand the reopening of places of worship, in a context of months of fasting for Muslims. In Côte d'Ivoire, there was the destruction of a screening centre under construction in early April 2020 in a working-class district of Abidjan. In Guinea, on 13 May 2020, the gendarmerie fired on the crowd demonstrating against the roadblocks set up in the town of Coyah (on the outskirts of the capital Conakry), which were the scene of a racketeering scandal involving extracting bribes from the inhabitants for not wearing masks or for passing through, which resulted in about ten deaths. In some cases, these demonstrations led to a relaxation of certain measures, in others not. In Burkina Faso, for example, pressure from shopkeepers led to the cancellation of the closure of markets on 20th April, which had been decided upon three weeks earlier.
Moreover, the months of May and June have been part of a trend towards the easing or even lifting of initial State measures, such as the reopening of cultural venues in Senegal on 11 May 2020 and the reopening of schools in Niger on 1 June 2020. For some countries, the process of lifting these measures have been somewhat hasty, not to say improvised. In Senegal, the announcement of the reopening of schools for examination classes scheduled for 2 June 2020 was cancelled the day before and the reopening was effective on 25 June 2020. The Senegalese President, who was himself under quarantine, announced the lifting of the state of emergency and curfew on 29 June for the following day, with a reinstatement of office hours from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. However, places hosting leisure activities behind closed doors remained closed, as did public markets, including one day a week dedicated to cleaning. In Côte d'Ivoire, such prevarication has also been present, for example, regarding the end of the cordon sanitaire around Greater Abidjan scheduled for 31 May 2020, and finally extended until 14 June 2020 and then lifted on 15 July to allow, according to some, the funeral of the Prime Minister to take place.
Although the role played by popular protests on the lifting of certain restrictive measures has not been refuted, other reasons, frequently political and socio-economic, also explain the easing of state measures. The health-based justifications for lifting these measures seems to have taken little account of the epidemiological curves, which did not change dramatically during this period. For example, in Benin, Côte d'Ivoire or Senegal, Fig. 2 clearly shows that the trends did not change, with or without measurement. For these three countries and for the others, it is as if there was no logical link between the evolution of reported cases and government measures. This lack of logic is sometimes compounded by a lack of consistency in the measures taken.
In Guinea, until the beginning of April, the measures were disorganised and lacked coherence. This was largely the product of thinly-veiled competition between the director of the ‘Agence de Sécurité Sanitaire’ (Health Security Agency) and the Minister of Health, partly as a result of the importance of this agency in the fight against Ebola, largely supported by donor, working in silos and with little coordination with the Ministry of Health. We have seen, for example, some replications of the response to the Ebola crisis with the implementation of the ‘Stop Covid in 60 Days’ plan, a replica of the ‘Stop Ebola in 60 Days’ plan, which had marked the end of the epidemic with its "micro-circling" strategy. In addition, the significant development of diagnostic capacities in Guinea, a benefit induced by the Ebola epidemic, has created a negative consequence in the fight against the pandemic: the abandonment of the community approach and community care. In Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, for example, we have seen that the lifting of travel restrictions for teachers returning to their home regions, for example, has had the immediate consequence of the virus being transmitted by these individuals. In Mali, the government decided to maintain the second round of legislative elections on 19 April while the epidemic was spreading throughout Africa. In Benin, the cordon sanitaire within which the South was constrained was lifted on 11 May 2020 to allow municipal elections to be held on 17 May 2020, while other measures only began to be lifted in early June. In Guinea, the debate on the holding of elections started even earlier. They were initially due to be held on 1 March but were later postponed to the 6 March and then the 15 March. They finally took place on 22 March.
In all the countries (and especially in Guinea), the coinciding of the electoral schedule and the epidemic implies a necessarily political reading of the measures put in place. Moreover, it would seem that it has also been the social and economic consequences of policies that have pushed most countries to reduce or scale down their health measures. Indeed, economic measures were taken very quickly to support households or businesses, for example by postponing the payment of water and electricity bills (Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Guinea), by reducing the price of fuel (Guinea), by exempting electricity and water bills from value added tax (Mali), by subsidising the tourist industry (Senegal) or by organising a vast distribution of food (Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Senegal) to the poorest households (taking advantage of the targeting mechanisms of social safety net programmes). Senegal has, for example, created a ‘Fund for the Fight against the Effects of COVID-19’ ("FORCE-COVID-19") to be endowed with CFAF 1,000 billion (1.5 billion Euros).
National Health Response Plans
We analysed and compared the health response plans of Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger and finally Senegal, due to the lack of data for Benin. The national response plans were mostly devised following the first diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in their respective national territories. Most of them were launched between March and April 2020. Senegal stands out, however, because it had a response plan in place before the first case of COVID-19 was detected on its soil. It is also the only country to have indicated the period of application of its plan, which officially ended in July 2020.
Countries defined the overall objective of their response plan as enabling them to have the capacity to respond to or control the pandemic. Only Senegal and Mali raise (timidly) the ethical issues associated with the response. The countries have developed their response plan around activities that refer to seven major dimensions: 1) planning, coordination and monitoring, 2) epidemiological surveillance, case investigation and entry point controls, 3) laboratory (biological surveillance), 4) prevention and infection control measures, 5) risk communication (health education) and community engagement/mobilization, 6) case management (including health system strengthening) and 7) evaluation and research (Table 5). However, the dimensions have e not been developed at the same stage of response to the pandemic and do not represent the same financial burden between countries (Additional files 2).
Table 5
Budget associated with the different health activities in individual country plans
|
Burkina Faso
|
Côte d’Ivoire
|
Guinée
|
Mali
|
Niger
|
Sénégal
|
1. Planning, coordination and monitoring
|
78,4%
|
*
|
*
|
2,4%
|
4,3%
|
3,3%
|
2. Epidemiological surveillance (including case investigation and port of entry controls)
|
5,5%
|
*
|
*
|
33,5%
|
36,7%
|
12,3%
|
3. Biological monitoring (laboratory)
|
0,2%
|
*
|
*
|
4,2%
|
4. Infection prevention and control measures
|
9,4%
|
*
|
|
6,4%
|
4,6%
|
19,7%
|
5. Risk communication and community engagement
|
0,6%
|
*
|
*
|
6,3%
|
30,7%
|
13,4%
|
6. Case management (including health system strengthening)
|
5 ,7%
|
*
|
*
|
51,4%
|
22,2%
|
47,1%
|
7. Evaluation and research
|
0,2%
|
*
|
|
|
1,5%
|
|
TOTAL
|
100%
|
*
|
|
|
100%
|
100%
|
Note : * : data not available |
The budgets for response plans vary widely between countries (Table 6). The response plan budget is around $15.3 per capita in Burkina Faso compared to $0.1 per capita in Niger.
Table 6
Health budget of response plans with population size, by country
|
Burkina
|
Côte d’Ivoire
|
Guinée
|
Mali
|
Niger
|
Sénégal
|
« Health » budget of response plans (local currency)
|
177914978612 (FCFA)
|
25069229 (FCFA)
|
5613000000000 (Francs guinéens)
|
3372917000 (FCFA)
|
1454910727 (FCFA)
|
1440574651(FCFA)
|
Budget "health"/inhabitant (local currency)
|
9007,6
|
3824,6
|
90621,2
|
176,8
|
64,8
|
90,9
|
Budget for health component only/habitant ($)
|
15,3
|
6,5
|
9,97
|
0,3
|
0,1
|
0,15
|
However, the availability of budgets is not guaranteed, even though the majority of countries do not mention this fact in their documents. In Burkina Faso, the country announces that it has released a financial package of 500 million CFA francs, or 0.28% of its budget. The country announced that 2.41% of its plan was covered by external contributions that had already been pledged, of which slightly less than 10% (9.6%), i.e. 412,958,116, FCFA had already been released, which raises the question of the effective implementation of these plans.
Crisis Management Committees
The analysis of the various committees formed in the context of the pandemic in the seven countries is a challenge, given the lack of transparency in the national communications on their creation and implementation. In addition, there are several sub-committees and commissions that revolve around the primary bodies, the outlines of which are not always very clear. There seem to be two main groupings: on the one hand, the bodies managing the response to the pandemic and, on the other hand, the consultative bodies. The bodies behind the creation of these different committees are either ministries or, as in the case of the Monitoring Committee for the implementation of the operations of the FORCE Covid-19 created in Senegal, the presidency or head of government. In Senegal, the setting up of a scientific committee had been announced, but it appears never to have been organized; nevertheless, we have seen the establishment of research and ethics commissions. The bodies identified by our analysis (Additional files 3), were mostly created following the first cases of coronavirus. The composition of the bodies identified depends primarily on their mandate; the committees whose mandate is oriented towards surveillance and research objectives are mostly composed of scientists, while the members of bodies with a mandate for response management are most often from the public sector, including a significant number of ministers. Finally, we have observed the numerical importance of scientists from the basic sciences, a significant under-representation of women, the rare presence of technical and financial partners and the notable absence of actors from the voluntary sector, civil society, patient representatives, and from the private sector. Guinea is an exception here, however, with a scientific committee chaired by a woman, a gynaecologist, and two vice-chairmen, an anthropologist and a virologist. It should also be noted that there are many commissions within the Agence de Sécurité Sanitaire (Health Security Agency) that work on specific themes and welcome NGO actors (communication commission, laboratory commission, etc.).