key: cord-0908150-v7akuu2o
authors: Ahmed, Anwar E.
title: Limited transmissibility of coronavirus (SARS‐1, MERS, and SARS‐2) in certain regions of Africa
date: 2020-04-08
journal: J Med Virol
DOI: 10.1002/jmv.25852
sha: 5d8c5af5e0b2b46b9463cca6019769360f3080d4
doc_id: 908150
cord_uid: v7akuu2o

A novel coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) was first identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019 [1], and after a few weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak as a global pandemic [2]. Scientifically, the virus was named “severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS‐2) coronavirus” [3]. High‐level endemic transmissions occurred in several countries, and while yet very limited, have spread in certain regions of the globe, particularly in Africa [4]. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

According to statistics, only low-level endemic transmissions were observed in parts of Africa [5] . The United States has the most cases (297,575), followed by Spain (124,736), Italy (124,632), Germany (92,150), France (83,050), and China (82,543). However, the spread of the SARS-2 in the African continent appears affected by geographical regions.

The highest number of SARS-2 cases has been reported in South Africa (1, 505 This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Kong. The African continent reported only one SARS-1 case, which was detected in a traveler having returned to South Africa from Hong Kong as per the WHO situation report. Arabia in September 2012 [7] . The virus is still circulating, primarily in the Arabian Peninsula, with sporadic cases, and tends to be correlated with climate factors [8] . As of April 3, 2020, a total of 2,521 MERS cases with 866 deaths with zoonotic cases (camels to humans) were limited to the Arabian Peninsula [9, 10, 11, 12] . Studies shows a longterm MERS coronavirus circulation in African camels [13, 14] . Although MERS-CoV antibodies have been detected in camels in Africa [13, 14, 15] , no zoonotic transmission was found in Africa. For instance, a study from Sudan detected MERS virus in camels but not in camel workers [15] . This is unlike the situation in the Arabian Peninsula, 

There are no conflicts of interest.

Ethics approval: The study may not require IRB/ethics committee approval due to utilization of publicly reported data. 

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