Abstract
BackgroundThe novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has claimed lots of lives, posing a dire threat to global health. It was predicted that the coronavirus outbreak in the African population would be very lethal and result to economic devastation owing to the prevalence of immune-compromised population, poverty, low lifespan, fragile health care systems, poor economy, and lifestyle factors. Accumulation of mutations gives virus selective advantage for host invasion and adaptation, higher transmissibility of more virulent strains, and drug resistance. The present study determined the severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 (SARS-CoV-2) genomic variability and the contributory factors to the low COVID-19 fatality in Africa. To assess the SARS-CoV-2 mutational landscape, 924 viral sequences from the Africa region with their sociobiological characteristics mined from the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) database were analyzed.ResultsMutational analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 sequences revealed highly recurrent mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein D614G (97.2%), concurrent R203K, and G204R (65.2%) in the nucleocapsid phosphoprotein, and P4715L (97.2%) in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase flagging these regions as SARS-CoV-2 mutational hotspots in the African population. COVID-19 is more severe in older people (> 65 years); Africa has a low percentage of people within this age group (4.36%). The average age of the infected patients observed in this study is 46 years with only 47 infected patients (5.1%) above 65 years in Africa in comparison to 13.12% in countries in other continents with the highest prevalence of COVID-19.ConclusionsAfrica’s young generation, the late incidence of the disease, and adherence to public health guidelines are important indicators that may have contributed to the observed low COVID-19 deaths in Africa. However, with the easing of lockdown and regulatory policies, daily increasing incidence in most countries, and low testing and sequencing rate, the epidemiology and the true impact of the pandemic in Africa remain to be unraveled.
Highlights
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has claimed lots of lives, posing a dire threat to global health
It was predicted that the coronavirus outbreak in the African population would be very lethal and result to economic devastation owing to the prevalence of immunecompromised population, poverty, low lifespan, fragile health care systems, poor economic decisions, and lifestyle factors [3, 5]
The present study aims to gain insight into the mutational landscape of the SARS-CoV-2 genome in African population which may serve as eventual targets for drug design and/or vaccine development
Summary
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has claimed lots of lives, posing a dire threat to global health. The present study determined the severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 (SARS-CoV-2) genomic variability and the contributory factors to the low COVID-19 fatality in Africa. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV-2), the causative pathogen of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), was first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, China [1, 2]. The highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 has spread globally within 3-months of its first outbreak and has posed dire stress on public health. Africa accounts for 3.5% of the fatality rate recorded globally with the highest death toll reported in Americas (55.1%) and Europe (25.7%) which are developed regions with high standard of living and healthcare structure [6, 7]. As of October 16, 2020, there have been 1,623,181 confirmed cases and 39,150 deaths in Africa, out of which South Africa has the highest toll with 698,184 confirmed cases and 18,309 deaths [4]
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