Situational Analysis Of Corona Virus Pandemic In The North West Region Of Cameroon

Introduction: It was in December 2019 that in China, particularly in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province, the coronavirus-2 disease of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-COV-2) began and the spread of this pneumonia of viral origin in the developed countries of Europe and America pushed the World Health Organization to declare the Pandemic on March 11, 2020. The challenges on this new disease were colossal and the diagnosis (clinical and biological) conditioned the management. Sub-Saharan Africa and in particular Gabon, home to a dynamic and very heterogeneous population, has responded to this great challenge, which was to provide populations with diagnostic tests (RDTs, RT-PCR) for the tracking of suspected cases and large-scale testing in a predominantly asymptomatic population. Objective: The objective of this work was to determine the incidence of Covid-19 in the ethnic groups (continental origins) of the city of Port-Gentil between the months of April 2021 and March 2022. Methodology: A cross-sectional study with descriptive aim was conducted to determine the new cases at the 1st Laboratory of Medical Biology. Participants of all ages from Africa, Europe, America and Asia regardless of gender were included. The data collected in an Excel table and the statistical analyses were carried out using XLSTAT. The significance threshold was set at 0.05. Results: The results of this study covered 20984 tests performed with 1462 new cases. The sex ratio F/M in the new population was 0.3, the average age was 41 years±12 and the population incidence rate to Covid-19 was 6.9 cases per 100. The population of African origin accounted for 79% of new cases or 1154, followed by the European ethnic group with 14.3% or 208. The Covid-19 incidence rate was high in the American ethnic group (Caucasian) 12.7 cases per 100, while it fluctuated around 7 cases per 100 in the other groups (African, European and Asian). In female subjects it was 11.6 cases 100 and in the younger (<18 years) and older (>60 years) age groups it was 12.3 and 12.7 cases for 100 respectively compared to the rest of the population. The highest incidence rate was in April 2021 10.3 cases per 100 and in January 2022 with 18.3 cases per 100 and the incidence rate was lowest in August with 1.3 cases per 100. The incidence of Covid-19 had doubled from October 2021 to March 2022 (period varying Omicron) or 8.63 cases per 100 against 4.35 from April to September 2021 (delta period). More than 60% of new cases were recorded in the semester from October 2021 to March 2022 for gender, age group and ethnic group (race). A statistically significant difference (p<0.0001) was observed among Africans
between the two semesters (April to September and October to January)