(11 Dec 2020) LEAD IN:
Kenya had many more cases of COVID-19 than doctors initially realised, according to a study by the Kenya Medical Research Institute and Wellcome Trust.
The study is based on antibody tests on over 3,000 blood sample donors between April to mid-June 2020. Doctors say it might have not have been noticed because people who had it may have been asymptomatic.
STORY-LINE:
At Kenya’s Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), scientists are working to find out the true extent of the spread of COVID-19.
Africa accounts for 17-percent of the global population, but by late July 2020 official figures showed the population accounted for only five percent of the global COVID-19 cases, and just three percent of global deaths reported.
But a report by KEMRI says far more people could have contracted the virus.
They studied samples of blood from donors from six counties in Kenya – a large area but not a nationwide random sample.
The scientists detected virus antibodies, indicating people may have been exposed to it, even if they had not reported feeling sick.
Isabella Ochola-Oyier leads the Biosciences Department at KEMRI which is supported by the Wellcome Trust.
“On the surface of the virus we have this protein called the spike protein and so we were able to develop this in the lab so we could then go out and screen blood samples from individuals in the population to determine how many individuals in the population have what we call an antibody response to this protein, the spike protein,” says Ochola-Oyier.
She explains why they didn’t carry out PCR tests which shows whether an infection is present in the person at the time and which are considered to be more reliable.
“There are limitations with the COVID-19 PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test. The limitations being the human resource capacity to do the testing, the availability of reagents. So you see that limits the amount of people you can test in the population whereas if you are able to take a large blood sample from individuals then you can quickly say how many people have seen the virus.”
Kenya’s low official infection rates could be down to the strict containment measures, and the fact that there were not enough PCR tests available to test more people.
Also, the young population could mean people were more likely to be asymptomatic or have mild infections.
According to Ochola-Oyier, the rapid spread – but relatively few hospitalisations – was down to the high number of asymptomatic people who were catching and spreading the virus.
“What we have been able to understand from the data we have been receiving for the COVID-19 testing, because we support the six coastal counties in Kenya, was that a large proportion of the individuals earlier on in the pandemic asymptomatic which means they have virus but don’t show any clinical signs of just coughing or sneezing, or the standard signs that we know of. That means that they are roaming around in the population with virus but not being sick and they are not aware that they have the virus. So that obviously, you are able to some extent if you measure the blood sample you can also pick that up that there are two ways, you may have been asymptomatic and have generated antibodies to that, you may have been symptomatic or you may have simply been exposed to somebody who was asymptomatic or symptomatic and still have generated an immune response to being exposed to the virus,” she says.
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