{"id":19228,"date":"2022-03-27T20:04:31","date_gmt":"2022-03-27T20:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths"},"modified":"2022-03-27T20:13:11","modified_gmt":"2022-03-27T20:13:11","slug":"mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths","title":{"rendered":"Mortuary Research Data shows Zambia under reported COVID deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zambia. <\/strong><\/span>Around 90% of deceased people tested at University Teaching Hospital (UTH) Mortuary during coronavirus surges were positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection, suggesting flaws in the idea of an \u2018African paradox\u2019.<\/p>\n

Almost one-third of more than 1,000 bodies taken to a mortuary in Lusaka in 2020 and 2021 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, implying that many more people died of COVID-19 in Zambia\u2019s capital than official numbers suggest.<\/p>\n

Some scientists say that the findings further undermine the \u2018African paradox\u2019, a narrative that the pandemic was less severe in Africa than in other parts of the world.<\/p>\n

This idea arose after health experts noticed that sub-Saharan nations were reporting lower case numbers and fewer COVID-19 deaths than might be expected.<\/p>\n

But researchers say that the findings from Zambia could reflect a broader truth \u2014 that a deficit of testing and strained medical infrastructure have masked COVID-19\u2019s true toll on the continent. The findings have not yet been peer-reviewed.<\/p>\n

Ignoring the true extent of COVID-19 in Lusaka and beyond \u201cis so wrong. People were ill. They\u2019ve had their families destroyed,\u201d says co-author Christopher Gill, a global-health specialist at Boston University in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

One of his colleagues in Zambia died of COVID-19 while working on the project. \u201cIt\u2019s not hypothetical to me,\u201d says Gill. Missing COVID cases When SARS-CoV-2 began spreading globally, many health researchers worried that the virus would devastate sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n

But the surprisingly low numbers of reported COVID-19 cases in the region led to the perception \u201cthat severe debilitation and deaths caused by COVID-19 were somehow less in Africa compared to other continents\u201d, says Yakubu Lawal, an endocrinologist at the Federal Medical Centre Azare in Nigeria.<\/p>\n

Lawal and other scientists speculated that the relative youth of Africa\u2019s population might have helped to spare the continent, but also suspected that official numbers were under-reported.<\/p>\n

The question was by how much. Seeking answers, Gill and his colleagues in Zambia tested bodies in one of Lusaka\u2019s largest morgues for SARS-CoV-2 over several months in 2020 and 2021.<\/p>\n

Test positivity was 32% overall \u2014 and reached around 90% during the peak of the waves caused by the Beta and Delta variants. Moreover, only 10% of the people whose bodies were found to contain the virus after death had tested positive while still alive.<\/p>\n

Some had falsely tested negative, but most had never been tested at all. Although Gill and his colleagues can\u2019t confirm that all of these people died of COVID-19, the results still stand in sharp contrast to official numbers.<\/p>\n

So far, there have been fewer than 4,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Zambia, a country of around 19 million people. Separate findings published on 10 March suggest that Zambia\u2019s \u2018excess\u2019 deaths \u2014 those above what would usually be expected \u2014 from 1 January 2020 to the end of 2021 exceeded 80,0003.<\/p>\n

The Lusaka numbers mesh with statistics from South Africa, where a 2021 study found that only 4\u20136% of SARS-CoV-2 infections in two communities were officially documented4. Further study of the same communities showed that 62% of study participants had been infected at least once from July 2020 to August 20215.<\/p>\n

Co-author Cheryl Cohen, an epidemiologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, says that many of these infections were asymptomatic, but that people with symptoms might also have gone undetected because of the cost and difficulty of getting tested.<\/p>\n

Gill suspects that a major reason for the gap between his results and official counts is that most people in Zambia who die of COVID-19 do so outside medical care.<\/p>\n

Four out of five people tested in the study were never admitted to a hospital; the majority of unreported infections were in people living in Lusaka\u2019s lowest-income neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody\u2019s vaccinated. Nobody has masks. Nobody has access to the medical care they need,\u201d says Gill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a population that is already stressed and unhealthy, and then \u2014 bam! In comes COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vast variation<\/b><\/p>\n

But not everyone is convinced that the Lusaka findings invalidate the idea of the African paradox. In Ethiopia, for instance, \u201cour experience is people get infected with the virus, are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, and recover\u201d, says Amare Abera Tareke, a physiologist at Wollo University in Dessie.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it is difficult to ignore the current finding, we have to take it cautiously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gill worries that the idea that Africa was spared the worst of the pandemic might have led people to take unnecessary risks or contributed to \u201cthe lack of urgency\u201d in supplying African nations with vaccines.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose this could be unique to Lusaka,\u201d he says, \u201cBut boy, you\u2019d really have to try hard to explain why.\u201d<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Zambia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zambia. Around 90% of deceased people tested at University Teaching Hospital (UTH) Mortuary during coronavirus surges were positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection, suggesting flaws in the idea of an \u2018African paradox\u2019. Almost one-third of more than 1,000 bodies taken to a mortuary in Lusaka in 2020 and 2021 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, implying that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":19227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,12,16],"tags":[234,235,233],"class_list":["post-19228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-zambia","tag-zambia"],"yoast_head":"\nMortuary Research Data shows Zambia under reported COVID deaths - Zambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Around 90% of deceased people tested at University Teaching Hospital (UTH) Mortuary during coronavirus surges were posit ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mortuary Research Data shows Zambia under reported COVID deaths\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Around 90% of deceased people tested at University Teaching Hospital (UTH) Mortuary during coronavirus surges were posit ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Zambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-03-27T20:04:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-27T20:13:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2022\/03\/img-6240c53d83534.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Mortuary Research Data shows Zambia under reported COVID deaths\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-27T20:04:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-27T20:13:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths\"},\"wordCount\":776,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2022\/03\/img-6240c53d83534.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Zambia\",\"Zambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/mortuary-research-data-shows-zambia-under-reported-covid-deaths\",\"name\":\"Mortuary Research Data shows Zambia under reported COVID deaths - 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