COVID-19 and Malaria Co-Infection: Do Stigmatization and Self-Medication Matter? A Case for Nigeria

Abstract

The Global South is saddled with issues relating to self-medication and the use of complementary medicine, which is due to inadequate resources and patient’s health illiteracy. Documentation of COVID-19 related self-medication is observed in the literature, of which the phenomenon is partly fueled by the rapid spread of rumors in favour of self-medication on social media. Also, common in the Global South is the stigmatization of people with COVID-19. Because of the stigma attached to having COVID-19, most COVID-19 patients prefer to test instead for malaria, since malaria (which is very common in the Global South) and COVID-19 share several symptoms leading to misdiagnosis. Thus, appropriate COVID-19 dynamics prediction in the Global South should account for the role of the self-medicated population, the dynamics of malaria, and the impact of stigmatization. In this paper, we formulate and analyze a mathematical model for the co-dynamics of COVID-19 and malaria in Nigeria. The model is represented by a system of compartmental ODEs that take into account the self-medicated population and the impact of COVID-19 stigmatization. Our findings reveal that COVID-19 stigmatization and misdiagnosis contribute to self-medication, which, in turn, increases the prevalence of COVID-19. The basic and invasion reproduction numbers for these diseases and quantification of model parameters uncertainties and sensitivities are presented.

Note:

Funding Information: This research is funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) (Grant No. 109559-001). JDK acknowledges support from NSERC Discovery Grant (Grant No. RGPIN-2022-04559).

Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Keywords: Epidemiology, COVID-19, Malaria, Self-medication