The progression of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in Africa has so far been heterogeneous, and the full impact is not yet well understood. In this study, we ...describe the genomic epidemiology using a dataset of 8746 genomes from 33 African countries and two overseas territories. We show that the epidemics in most countries were initiated by importations predominantly from Europe, which diminished after the early introduction of international travel restrictions. As the pandemic progressed, ongoing transmission in many countries and increasing mobility led to the emergence and spread within the continent of many variants of concern and interest, such as B.1.351, B.1.525, A.23.1, and C.1.1. Although distorted by low sampling numbers and blind spots, the findings highlight that Africa must not be left behind in the global pandemic response, otherwise it could become a source for new variants.
It is increasingly recognised that the use of BMI cut-off points for diagnosing obesity (OB) and proxy measures for body fatness in a given population needs to take into account the potential impact ...of ethnicity on the BMI–fat % relationship in order to avoid adiposity status misclassification. This relationship was studied here in 377 Mauritian schoolchildren (200 boys and 177 girls, aged 7–13 years) belonging to the two main ethnic groups: Indian (South Asian descent) and Creole (African/Malagasy descent), with body composition assessed using an isotopic 2H dilution technique as reference. The results indicate that for the same BMI, Indians have more body fat (and less lean mass) than Creoles among both boys and girls: linear regression analysis revealed significantly higher body fat % by 4–5 units (P < 0·001) in Indians than in Creoles across a wide range of BMI (11·6–34·2 kg/m2) and body fat % (5–52 %). By applying Deurenberg’s Caucasian-based equation to predict body fat % from WHO-defined BMI thresholds for overweight (OW) and OB, and by recalculating the equivalent BMI values using a Mauritian-specific equation, it is shown that the WHO BMI cut-offs for OB and OW would need to be lowered by 4·6–5·9 units in Indian and 2·0–3·7 units in Creole children in the 7–13-year-old age group. These results have major implications for ethnic-based population research towards improving the early diagnosis of excess adiposity in this multi-ethnic population known to be at high risk for later development of type 2 diabetes and CVD.
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