AUTHOR=Naffeti Bechir , Bourdin Sebastien , Ben Aribi Walid , Kebir Amira , Ben Miled Slimane 

TITLE=Spatio-temporal evolution of the COVID-19 across African countries

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1039925

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2022.1039925

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=<p>The aim of this study is to make a comparative study on the reproduction number <italic>R</italic><sub>0</sub> computed at the beginning of each wave for African countries and to understand the reasons for the disparities between them. The study covers the two first years of the COVID-19 pandemic and for 30 African countries. It links pandemic variables, reproduction number <italic>R</italic><sub>0</sub>, demographic variable, median age of the population, economic variables, <italic>GDP</italic> and <italic>CHE</italic> per capita, and climatic variables, mean temperature at the beginning of each waves. The results show that the diffusion of COVID-19 in Africa was heterogeneous even between geographical proximal countries. The difference of the basic reproduction number <italic>R</italic><sub>0</sub> values is very large between countries and is significantly correlated with economic and climatic variables <italic>GDP</italic> and temperature and to a less extent with the mean age of the population.</p>