Examining the Impact of Increasing Vaccine Coverage and Nonpharmaceutical Interventions against Coronavirus Disease 2019 In Ghana using Mathematical Modeling

Seroprevalence studies assessing community exposure to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Ghana concluded that population-level immunity remained low as of February 2021. Thus, it is important to demonstrate how increasing vaccine coverage reduces the economic and public health impacts associated with transmission of the novel coronavirus. To that end, this study used a Susceptible-Exposed-Presymptomatic-Symptomatic-Asymptomatic-Recovered-Dead-Vaccinated compartmental model to simulate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission and the role of public health interventions in Ghana. The impact of increasing vaccination rate and decline in transmission rates due to nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on cumulative infections and deaths averted was explored under different scenarios. Latin hypercube sampling-partial rank correlation coefficient (LHS-PRCC) was used to investigate uncertainty and sensitivity of the outcomes to the parameters. Simulation results suggest that increasing the vaccination rate to achieve 50% coverage was associated with almost 30,000 deaths and 25 million infections averted. In comparison, a 50% decrease in the transmission coefficient was associated with about 50 million infections and 120,000 deaths averted. The LHS-PRCC results also found that cumulative infections and deaths averted were most sensitive to three model parameters: Transmission rate, vaccination rate, and waning immunity rate from infection. There is a need to increase vaccination coverage by ensuring an increased supply. Adherence to NPIs and increased vaccine uptake would successfully mitigate the impact of COVID-19 in Ghana.