Modelling the impact of vaccination on COVID-19 in African countries

The rapid development of vaccines to combat the spread of COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is a great scientific achievement. Before the development of the COVID-19 vaccines, most studies capitalized on the available data that did not include pharmaceutical measures. Such studies focused on the impact of non-pharmaceutical measures such as social distancing, sanitation, use of face masks, and lockdowns to study the spread of COVID-19. In this study, we used the SIDARTHE-V model, an extension of the SIDARTHE model, which includes vaccination rollouts. We studied the impact of vaccination on the severity of the virus, specifically focusing on death rates, in African countries. The SIRDATHE-V model parameters were extracted by simultaneously fitting the COVID-19 cumulative data of deaths, recoveries, active cases, and full vaccinations reported by the governments of Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Togo, and Zambia. Using South Africa as a case study, our analysis showed that the cumulative death rates declined drastically with the increased extent of vaccination drives. Whilst the infection rates sometimes increased with the arrival of new coronavirus variants, the death rates did not increase as they did before vaccination.