Abstract
On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was notified of a novel coronavirus disease in China that was later named COVID-19. On 11 March 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. The first instance of the virus in Nigeria was documented on 27 February 2020. This study provides a preliminary epidemiological analysis of the first 45 days of COVID-19 outbreak in Nigeria. We estimated the early transmissibility via time-varying reproduction number based on the Bayesian method that incorporates uncertainty in the distribution of serial interval (time interval between symptoms onset in an infected individual and the infector), and adjusted for disease importation. By 11 April 2020, 318 confirmed cases and 10 deaths from COVID-19 have occurred in Nigeria. At day 45, the exponential growth rate was 0.07 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.05–0.10) with a doubling time of 9.84 days (95% CI: 7.28–15.18). Separately for imported cases (travel-related) and local cases, the doubling time was 12.88 days and 2.86 days, respectively. Furthermore, we estimated the reproduction number for each day of the outbreak using a three-weekly window while adjusting for imported cases. The estimated reproduction number was 4.98 (95% CrI: 2.65–8.41) at day 22 (19 March 2020), peaking at 5.61 (95% credible interval (CrI): 3.83–7.88) at day 25 (22 March 2020). The median reproduction number over the study period was 2.71 and the latest value on 11 April 2020, was 1.42 (95% CrI: 1.26–1.58). These 45-day estimates suggested that cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria have been remarkably lower than expected and the preparedness to detect needs to be shifted to stop local transmission.
Highlights
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) emerged in the city of Wuhan, China in late December 2019 and was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020 [1]
The first case of COVID-19 occurred in Lagos state, the economic hub of the country, which has remained the focus of the pandemic in Nigeria
This study aimed at serving as a reminder to policymakers, health officers, disease control agencies and the general public, that the number of confirmed cases may be relatively low in Nigeria, the risk is still very high and potentially, there could be many asymptomatic cases in the country
Summary
(SARS-CoV-2) emerged in the city of Wuhan, China in late December 2019 and was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020 [1]. The disease has quickly spread to all continents and, to date, over 1.6 million cases have been recorded with a fatality rate of 6.19% noted on 11 April 2020 [2]. The risk of COVID-19 importation from Europe to Africa is higher than the risk of importation from China [3]. Martinez-Alvarez et al [4] compared early transmission of COVID-19 (within 6 days after the first cases were detected) in selected countries and observed a more rapid spread of the virus in some West African countries than in Europe [4]. Public Health 2020, 17, 3054; doi:10.3390/ijerph17093054 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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