ArticleEarth systems and environment2021
A Geographical Analysis of the African COVID-19 Paradox: Putting the Poverty-as-a-Vaccine Hypothesis to the Test.
Article in Earth systems and environment, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Pre-COVID-19 ex vivo cross-reactive IFN-γ cellular response to SARS-CoV-2 spike overlapping peptides is more prevalent among Kenyan compared to Swedish adults.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Rethinking the evidence on COVID-19 in Africa.The Lancet. Infectious diseases · 2025Review
- Geospatial modelling of COVID19 mortality in Oman using geographically weighted Poisson regression GWPR.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Centering Africa as context and driver for Global Health Ethics: incompleteness, conviviality and the limits of Ubuntu: This article is based on the opening keynote address at the Oxford Global Health and Bioethics Conference, Oxford, June 2023.Wellcome open research · 2024Article
- Socio-Economic and Demographic Factors Associated with the Spatial Distribution of COVID-19 in Africa.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2023Article
- Prevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in people attending the two main Goma markets in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.Epidemiology and infection · 2023Article
- Country-level predictors of COVID-19 mortality.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- High seroprevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the capital of Chad.Journal of public health in Africa · 2022Article
- Epidemiological characteristics and quarantine assessment of imported international COVID-19 cases, March to December 2020, Chengdu, China.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Private sector engagement in the COVID-19 response: experiences and lessons from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda.Globalization and health · 2022Review
- The challenges of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) testing in low-middle income countries and possible cost-effective measures in resource-limited settings.Globalization and health · 2022Review
- Is Meteorology a Factor to COVID-19 Spread in a Tropical Climate?Earth systems and environment · 2021Article
- Place-based modelling of social vulnerability to COVID-19 in Nigeria.SN social sciences · 2021Article
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8 authors.
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Abstract
The poverty-as-a-vaccine hypothesis came to light following the wide circulation of the controversial British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service post on the internet and social media. It was a theoretical response to what this paper has termed as "the African COVID-19 paradox" or what some have characterised as the "African COVID-19 anomaly" whose thesis is though Africa is the poorest continent in the world, yet it has some of the lowest COVID-19 infection and mortality rates globally. This paradoxical profile apparently contradicts earlier and grim projections by several international bodies on the fate of Africa in this global health crisis. Given this background, we specifically tested the validity of the hypothesis from a geographic perspective within the spatial framework of Africa. Data came from secondary sources. Evidence truly points out a significant negative relationship between COVID-19 and poverty in Africa and thus statistically supports the poverty-as-a-vaccine hypothesis. However, this does not confirm that poverty confers immunity against COVID-19 but it implicitly shows there are complex factors responsible for the anomaly. The main conclusion of the paper is that poverty has no protective immunity against COVID-19 in Africa and is therefore not tenable.
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