A call to action: Temporal trends of COVID-19 deaths in the South African Muslim community

• Published in: South African medical journal Vol. 111; no. 9; p. 818
• Main Author: Omar, M A K
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: South Africa Health and Medical Publishing Group (HMPG) 01-09-2021; Health & Medical Publishing Group
• Subjects: Blacks; COVID-19; Humans; Islam; SARS-CoV-2; South Africa; South Africa
• DOI: 10.7196/SAMJ.2021.v111i9.15929
• EISSN: 2078-5135
• ISSN: 0256-9574

To the Editor: The correspondence by Waasila Jassat et al.[1] warrants a few comments in terms of satisfying scientific scrutiny. The authors erroneously assert that compared with whites, South Africans of lndian origin have a 35% increased risk of dying of COVID-19 when hospitalised, and that the mortality rate is 11% higher than that for black South Africans. Yet perusal of their reference 1[2] does not support their contention. Scrutiny of the figure on p. 13 of the reference, giving the odds ratio (OR) for in hospital mortality, shows that the OR for Indians and black Africans is the same, viz. 1:3. In other words, both black Africans and Indians show a 30% higher in-hospital mortality rate compared with whites. The OR for coloureds was 1:2.[2] This observation corroborates a previous report by the same group (National Institute for Communicable Diseases) that found a higher mortality from COVID-19 in black Africans and coloureds compared with whites.[3] Another point that needs clarification in Jassat et al.’s letter[1] relates to their graph on excess natural deaths compared with Muslim COVID-19 deaths (Fig. 2B). The value of this statistic is questionable when cognisance is taken of the fact that the trajectory of the total number of COVID-19 deaths has been omitted.