Africa-Press – Botswana. Batswana are less likely to die from the raging Covid-19 fifth wave compared to nine months ago when the country’s infection rate was much lower.
While Botswana’s Covid-19 fifth wave has seen the country recording more than 100 cases per 100,000 residents in the past 28 days pushing the country to level 3 – high risk of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fewer Batswana are dying from the disease compared to when the country was ranked at lower risk and recording less than 50 cases per 100,000 residents.
Indications are that it’s all because of the country’s aggressive vaccination programme.
Sunday Standard investigative data journalism has revealed that Botswana’s Covid-19 Case Fatality Rate (CFR) has dropped to the lowest in the Southern African region at 0.9 while the country’s vaccination rate is the highest in the region by far at 63% of the population fully vaccinated.
Case Fatality Rate, also called Case Fatality Risk or Case Fatality Ratio is the proportion of people who die from a specified disease among all individuals diagnosed with the disease over a certain period of time. Case Fatality Rate (CFR) typically is used as a measure of disease severity.
At the time of going to press, all countries in the Southern African region, except for Botswana had breached the CFR 1% mark.
Following its aggressive vaccination campaign, Botswana is now the only Southern African country that has been able reverse its covid-19 death rate to less than 1 percent of the infected population from 1,5% in October 2021.
Mauritius and Seychelles, the only two African countries that have met the World Health Organisation (WHO) July end 2022 target of fully vaccinating 70 of their populations also have the lowest CFR in the continent. Both countries have a CFR of 0.4%. South Africa which has fully vaccinated only 32% of its population has a CFR of 2,5% while Zimbabwe which has fully vaccinated 31% of its population has a lower CFR of 2,2%. This may be explained by the fact that Zimbabwe has more of its residents who have taken at least one jab. A total of 42% of its population has taken at least one shot of the Covid-19 vaccine while only 37% of South African residents have taken at least one jab. Namibia which has only 16 percent of its population fully vaccinated has a CFR of 2,4%.
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