Trajectory of confirmed cases and deaths: fourth wave of COVID-19 epidemic in Myanmar

In the current world, many countries are experiencing different waves of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to the respective dominant variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1]. In Myanmar, there were 612,883 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 19,434 deaths as of 30th April 2022. The first cases of COVID-19 were reported on 23rd March 2020 and the epidemic started its exponential growth in April 2020 [2, 3]. Incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths per 100,000 population were expressed in accordance with the total population of the 2014 National Census in Myanmar (51,486,253 persons) [4]. Ministry of Health (MOH) reported that there were 374 confirmed cases (0.73 per 100,000 population) and 6 deaths (0.01 per 100,000 population) with 1.60% case fatality rate (CFR) during the first wave of the epidemic. The second wave started in mid-August 2020 in Rakhine State and the disease spread to the whole country. There were 142,944 confirmed cases (278 per 100,000 population) with 3,210 deaths (6 per 100,000 population) and 2.25% CFR during the second wave [3]. Myanmar has also faced a rapid-surged third wave which started at the end of May 2021. Delta variant rapidly spread throughout the country with the highest impact on lives and the economy. In the third wave, there were 391,353 confirmed cases (760 per 100,000 population) and 16,094 deaths (31 per 100,000 population) with 4.11% CFR (Fig. 1a).

Myanmar launched the COVID-19 vaccination program in January 2021 according to the National Deployment Plan (NDP) [2, 5]. COVID-19 vaccines currently used in Myanmar are COVISHIELD™, BIBP (Sinopharm), Sinovac, COVAXIN, Sputnik Light, and AstraZeneca. At the end of December 2021, 15.6 million people have been fully vaccinated and 5.2 million people were administered first doses of the COVID-19 Vaccine [6]. On 28th December 2021, the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) was firstly detected in 4 confirmed cases who returned from Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. After detection of Omicron variants, the confirmed cases surged again starting from 28th January 2022, particularly in Yangon Region, and then the fourth wave of COVID-19 was started in Myanmar. The highest number of confirmed cases (3,563) and deaths (7) were reported in the fourth week of February 2022 (Fig. 1b).

Fig. 1figure 1

Epidemic curves of COVID-19 in Myanmar. a Different waves of COVID-19 epidemic as of 30th April 2022. b Fourth wave of COVID-19 epidemic with 7,683 imported case, 70,529 locally transmitted cases, and 124 deaths, from 28th January to 30th April 2022

留言 (0)

沒有登入
gif