COVID-19 pandemic in Mauritania


The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached Mauritania in March 2020.

Background

On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.
The case fatality ratio for COVID-19 has been much lower than SARS of 2003, but the transmission has been significantly greater, with a significant total death toll. Model-based simulations for Mauritania indicate that the 95% confidence interval for the time-varying reproduction number R t has been stable above 1.0 since the end of June 2020.

Timeline

March 2020

On 13 March, the first case was confirmed, with the case being placed in isolation.
The case is an expatriate from a yet to be disclosed country, in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott. After test results came in positive, charter flights to France were cancelled.
On 18 March, the Mauritanian Minister of Health announced the discovery of a second positive coronavirus case on a foreign female employee, working at a house of a couple of expatriates, the woman arrived 10 days prior the discovery.
A third coronavirus case was declared on 26 March for a 74-year-old man, a Mauritanian citizen who had arrived in Mauritania on 15 March from France via Air France.
The country recorded its first death on 30 March 2020. By the end of March there had been six confirmed cases, one death and two recoveries, leaving three active cases.

April 2020

On 18 April, the last remaining active case recovered. On that date, there had been 7 confirmed cases in the country, 6 of whom had recovered, and one of whom had died, making Mauritania temporarily one of few affected countries in the world to become free of COVID-19.
On 29 April, a Senegalese citizen tested positive. The case is a 68-year woman living in the state of Nouakchott.
There were two new cases in April, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 8. The death toll remained unchanged. Between 18 and 29 April there were no active cases; at the end of April the woman having tested positive on 29 April was the only active case.

May 2020

On 6 May, with only one active case, restrictions were partially eased. By the end of May, the number confirmed active cases had increased to 480 while the death toll had increased to 23. The total number of confirmed cases grew to 530 in May, 27 of whom recovered.

June 2020

There were 3707 new cases in June, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 4237. The death toll rose to 128. There were 2612 active cases at the end of June.

July 2020

August 2020