Africa: coronavirus projected health impact 2020

The coronavirus would lead to between 330,000 or more than three million deaths on the African continent. This based on predictions made in March 2020, based on how local governments would respond in the pandemic's early days and whether social distancing was going to be in place or not. For Africa, various scenarios were projected, from scenario A being the worst to scenario D having the least impact on the health of the African citizens. Whenever no intervention took place, it was estimated that over 1.2 billion people would have been infected, of which 22.5 million were hospitalized and over three million would become a casualty. As of May 2020, some African countries are in lockdown, while others implemented other measures to prevent the virus from spreading. Considering social distancing rules were implemented by most countries, it is unlikely that scenario A will happen.

Different scenarios on the projected health impact of coronavirus in Africa by the end of pandemic in 2020 (in million people)

Characteristic	Infected	Requiring hospitalization	Requiring critical care	Deaths
Scenario A	1,222.3	22.5	4.4	3.3
Scenario B	841.9	16	3.1	2.4
Scenario C	520.3	9.9	1.9	1.5
Scenario D	122.8	2.3	0.5	0.3

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Release date

April 2020

More information

Region

Africa

Survey time period

March 25, 2020

Special properties

Simulations based off Imperial College Epidemiological Model

Supplementary notes

The sources explained the various scenarios as followed:

Scenario A: Unmitigated (worst case) - no intervention.
Scenario B: Mitigation using moderate social distancing - Optimal outcome when epidemic is mitigated through interventions to limit contacts in general population including social distancing (45% reduction in contact rate).
Scenario C: Suppression using intense social distancing (1.6) – introduction of intense social distancing measures that reduce the contact rate in the general population by 75 per cent once the 1.6 deaths per 100,000 per week trigger is reached.
Scenario D: Suppression using intense social distancing (0.2) – introduction of intense social distancing measures that reduce the contact rate in the general population by 75 per cent once the 0.2 deaths per 100,000 per week trigger is reached.

Projected health impact based on the Imperial College Epidemiological Model as at March 25, 2020.

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