Impact of lockdown on COVID-19 transmission dynamics in Botswana : a mathematical modeling study.

The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest public health and economic challenge the world has faced for the past three years. Since there was no vaccine during the early phase of the pandemic, Botswana imposed lockdown as one of the non-pharmaceutical interventions to mitigate the COVID-19 burden. Various mathematical models have been used in the current and previous epidemics for analysis of disease spread, forecasting and identifying trajectories as well as assessing effect of imposed mitigation strategies to aid policy makers in making informed decisions. In this study, a deterministic mathematical model was formulated to assess transmission dynamics of COVID-19 and impact of control measures undertaken in Botswana to deal with the pandemic. This study aimed at informing future decisions about lockdown by retrospectively examining its impact of implementation using a mathematical modeling approach. The proposed model was fitted to actual COVID-19 data obtained from the Ministry of Health and Wellness. Publicly available COVID-19 data for the period of 23rd June till 22nd September 2020 was used to validate the model. Model simulations were conducted to estimate the number of cumulative cases without intervention, with lockdown alone as well as in combination with contact tracing. Furthermore, the model was used to estimate the impact of lockdown on reproduction number. According to the model projections, 4362 cumulative confirmed cases would have been recorded after a year in the worst-case scenario of no interventions. After inclusion of interventions in the proposed model, model simulation results showed that lockdown yielded a significant reduction in number of cumulative confirmed cases by a range of 37.28% to 77.94%. In addition, a combination of lockdowns and contact tracing was also found effective in reducing number of cumulative cases by 42.62% to 70.99% (lockdown and medium contact tracing) and by 47.33% to 65.55% (lockdown and high contact tracing). Furthermore, difference in reproduction numbers were noted with a significant reduction noticed after enforcing of lockdown when the reproduction number dropped from 3.9 before lockdown down to 0.4 after full lockdown was implemented. Among all scenarios, lockdown measure was evaluated as the most effective control strategy. These study findings suggest that in the absence of vaccination, lockdown (especially full lockdown) can be used as a possible control measure to culminate SARS-CoV-2 transmission and effectively reduce number of cumulative cases in Botswana. Additionally, combination of intervention strategies; lockdown and contact tracing, alongside other NPIs, is likely to be the most robust means of controlling COVID-19 transmission and spread.

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Zambia

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Matokwane, Lebang Janet

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://dspace.unza.zm/handle/123456789/9102

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.unza.zm:123456789/9102