A new study from Zambia has found almost a fifth of recently-deceased people in mid-2020 tested positive for COVID.
The study, from the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) study in Zambia, upends the notion that Africa somehow ‘dodged’ the worst of the COVID pandemic. Rather, the low reported rates are merely reflective of a lack of testing ability.
“Our findings cast doubt on the assumption that COVID-19 somehow skipped Africa or has not impacted the continent as heavily,” said study co-author Dr Lawrence Mwananyanda, a BUSPH adjunct research assistant professor of global health based in Lusaka. “This study shows that with proper diagnostics and testing, we can begin to identify the scale of COVID-19 in African countries such as Zambia. I hope this study will encourage African governments to look closer at the rollout of COVID-19 testing, as well as empower Africans to take proactive steps–such as wearing masks, physically distancing, and skipping handshakes–to protect themselves from COVID-19.”
The findings have important implications for global policy makers, who will need to ensure access to vaccines worldwide, along with monitoring.
The University Teaching Hospital morgue sees roughly 80% of people who die in Lusaka pass through it. From June to September, polymerase chain reaction tests detected COVID in 70 out of 364 recently-deceased people. A peak of 31% positive results was observed in July. Unlike the typical pattern of COVID deaths elsewhere, most of the deceased people who tested positive in this study were under 60 years old, including seven children. Given how rare paediatric COVID deaths are elsewhere, this is surprising, the researchers noted.
The researchers sought information about the symptoms of the 70 who tested positive. “In nearly all cases where we had those data, we found typical symptoms for COVID-19, yet only 6 had been tested before death,” Gill said. Of 75% of deaths outside hospital, none had been tested.
Monitoring COVID is not a simple task, especially in a country with limited resources. Zambia’s Ministry of Health has been very proactive and supportive of this and other COVID studies, the researchers said.
“They’re really grateful that we can provide them this data, and they can make informed decisions moving forward with this epidemic,” said Dr Mwananyanda.
The researchers were well-positioned to track COVID in Zambia, having conducted the ongoing Zambia Pertussis/RSV Infant Mortality Estimation Study (ZPRIME) at the morgue.
“Building studies such as this from scratch can take time and resources that can be difficult in the time needed to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. We invested a lot of time and money and human resources to building infrastructure that allowed for that extensive surveillance,” said co-author Rachel Pieciak, a research fellow at BUSPH. “So, what we’ve done was repurpose ZPRIME study capacity to focus on enrolling all deaths across all ages and testing for COVID-19.”
The researchers expressed hope that similar studies could be repurposed for the COVID fight.
Source: News-Medical.Net
Journal information: Mwananyanda, L., et al. (2021) Covid-19 deaths in Africa: prospective systematic postmortem surveillance study. BMJ. doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n334.
