An extended SEIRDV compartmental model: case studies of the spread of COVID-19 and vaccination in Tunisia and South Africa.

In the wake of the unprecedented health crisis triggered by the global COVID-19 pandemic, countries are still grappling with the pandemic's immediate health and socioeconomic consequences. This paper presents an extended SEIRD model with vaccination to study the evolution of COVID-19 in South Africa and Tunisia since the commencement of the vaccination campaign in each country, respectively. Epidemiologists often quantify a risk reduction following the implementation of non-pharmaceutical containment measures and vaccines when attempting to stem the spread of pandemics. However, an important question they often ask is the effectiveness of the non-pharmaceutical containment measures (social distancing and lockdowns) and the efficacy of such measures, including vaccines. Africa's COVID-19 vaccine roll-out stands at 16% as of April 2022; however, the continent lags behind many developing countries even though it harbours about 16% of the world population. While proliferating literature quantifies the efficacy and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, very little has been done using the SEIRDV model in African countries. This study compares the model-predicted results with the available data to estimate the dynamics of the infected population, using data from 20-03-2021 to 30-12-2021. A simulation of the SEIRDV model is performed and fitted to the data. Simulating the model involves solving a system of Ordinary Differential Equations numerically by taking the initial values for the key model parameters as inputs. After simulating the SEIRDV model, the model parameters are compared with real-world COVID-19 and vaccination data in order to estimate the values of the different parameters that best fit the observed data. The results of the study showed an inverted U-shaped trend for the infection rate after vaccination, indicating that increasing the vaccination rates reduces the transmission rates. Therefore African countries must continue to scale up the vaccination campaigns, and the world needs to endeavour to ensure an equitable vaccination roll-out to developing countries.

Food safety in vulnerable populations: A perspective on the challenges and solutions.

Vulnerable populations are a particular group that are not capable of fending for themselves due to a number of limitations. Among many things, of particular concern is the food safety challenges faced by these individuals and the high risk of susceptibility to foodborne diseases. In this paper, an attempt is made to point out the various challenges faced by vulnerable populations that make them more susceptible to foodborne illness than other healthy adults. Also, the paper highlights possible improvement pathways through which these people can have access to safe and nutritious food, and the current interventional steps taken to address the food safety risk associated with food handling activities of food meant for vulnerable groups.

Impact of COVID-19 on foodborne illness in Africa - A perspective piece.

Food safety investments in Africa, through international donors or national programs, were primarily focused on the formal market sector. However, increasing consumer food safety concerns about foods sold in the growing informal food markets, the rising foodborne disease burden in Africa, and the emergence of COVID-19 have all made food safety a major concern and ultimately brought it to an inflection point in Africa. In addition, Data on foodborne disease outbreaks revealed a scarcity of reported cases before and during the pandemic. The lack of information on foodborne disease reporting in Africa translates into one of the reasons why food safety in Africa is becoming a rising subject matter. This perspective discusses the situation of food safety in Africa before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, challenges confronting ongoing efforts to improve food safety in the post-COVID era in Africa are summarized and highlighted.

Food insecurity and outcomes during COVID-19 pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

The outbreak of COVID-19 led to the implementation of lockdowns and social distancing regulations to curb the spread of infections. Consequently, the lockdowns impeded the movement of smallholder farmers, agricultural inputs, and food products thereby disrupting the food supply chains in SSA. Therefore, this paper examines the relationship between food security indicators (accessibility, availability, utilization, stability) and COVID-19. This study uses ordinary least square regression (OLS) models to study the relationship between the food security indicators and COVID-19. The study considers 9 out of 48 sub-Saharan African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal) due to data availability restrictions. The result of the analysis indicated that a rise in COVID-19 levels negatively impacts all the 4 indicators of food security without exception. This paper underscores the need to consider the disruptions of food security indicators such as diet, nutritional content, access and availability, affordability, and food supply chains. Moreover, the paper discusses mitigating strategies that may alleviate SSA's food security amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. We recommend that SSA countries invest in quality agricultural and food production infrastructure and supporting industries that contribute directly to the food supply chain, such as agro-processing, fertilizer production and transport. Another important dimension of the COVID-19 and food insecurity syndemic is the income shocks that occurred as a consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak. Like many factories, companies, and service providers closed shop (especially the informal sector), people lost their incomes as a result of loss of employment and, in many instances, no social protection. Therefore, we recommend that SSA governments develop affordable, sustainable, and targeted social protection/insurance systems that extend to the informal sector of the economy.

COVID-19 vaccination in Africa: A case of unsatisfied expectation and ill-preparedness.

With a population of 1.3 billion people, of which 56% reside in rural settings, Africa seemed ill-prepared to handle the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine. In addition, the capacity needed for a successful COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Africa surpassed the available resources in local and state health agencies. As a result, African governments were advised to coordinate resources, health officials, and vaccinators, including local health practitioners, medical technicians, and pharmacists for the largest-ever vaccination campaign in Africa. Although the rolling out of the SARS-COV-2 vaccine was, as expected, slow in many African countries, and not yet enough to cover the entire population in Africa, the mass vaccination campaign in Africa must continue to ensure that priority for vaccination is extended beyond front-liners (healthcare workers) and specific high-risk populations, which has largely been the case in some African countries. This article highlights the overarching areas that we believe need to be prioritized to enhance Africa's effectiveness and coverage in the mass COVID-19 vaccination program.

The use of Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19: Panacea or enigma?

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has triggered unprecedented social, economic and health challenges. To control and reduce the infection rate, countries employed non-pharmaceutical measures such as social distancing, isolation, quarantine, and the use of masks, hand and surface sanitisation. Since 2021 a global race for COVID-19 vaccination ensued, mainly due to a lack of equitable vaccine production and distribution. To date, no treatments have been demonstrated to cure COVID-19. The scientific World is now considering the potential use of Ivermectin as a prophylactic and treatment for COVID-19. Against this background, the objective of this study is to review the literature to demystify the enigma or panacea in the use of Ivermectin. This paper intends to investigate literature which supports the existence or shows the nonexistence of a causal link between Ivermectin, COVID-19 mortality and recovery. There are inconsistent results on the effectiveness of Ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. Some studies have asserted that in a bid to slow down the transmission of COVID-19, ivermectin can be used to inhibit the in vitro replication of SARS-CoV-2. The pre-existing health system burdens can be alleviated as patients treated prophylactically would reduce hospital admissions and stem the spread of COVID-19. On a global scale, Ivermectin is currently used by about 28% of the world's population, and its adoption is presently about 44% of countries. However, the full administration of this drug would require further tests to establish its clinical effectiveness and efficacy.

The impact of socio-economic indicators on COVID-19: an empirical multivariate analysis of sub-Saharan African countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an unprecedented social and economic crisis. This study aims at investigating the impact of socio-economic indicators on the levels of COVID-19 (confirmed and death cases) in sub-Saharan Africa. The investigation makes use of the readily accessible public data: we obtain COVID-19 data from Johns Hopkins and socio-economic indicators from the World Bank. The socio-economic indicators (independent variables) used in the multilinear regression were GDP per capita, gross national income per capita, life expectancy, population density (people per sq. km of land area), the population aged 65 and above, current health expenditure per capita and total population. The dependent variables used were the COVID-19 confirmed and death cases. Amongst the seven socio-economic indicators, only 4 showed a statistically significant impact on COVID-19 cases: population density, gross national income per capita, population aged 65 and above and total population. The obtained R 2 of 69% and 63% indicated that the socio-economic indicators captured and explained the variation of COVID-19 confirmed cases and COVID-19 death cases, respectively. The startling results obtained in this study were the negative but statistically significant relationship between COVID-19 deaths and population density and the positive and statistically significant relationship between gross national income per capita and COVID-19 cases (both confirmed and deaths). Both these results are at odds with literature investigating these indicators in Europe, China, India and the UK.