The authors commend a recent study by Leonard Mndala and colleagues published in The Lancet Global Health “Comparison of maternal and neonatal outcomes of COVID-19 before and after SARS-CoV-2 omicron emergence in maternity facilities in Malawi (MATSurvey): data from a national maternal surveillance platform.” They stress that data on the burden of COVID-19 on maternal and perinatal outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa and other areas in LMICs are under-represented in the medical literature; higher income settings are more likely to have structured surveillance systems on health outcomes which allow for a fast response and uptake of data to support policymakers. They write, “To implement measures to avoid preventable mortality in under-resourced settings, we need the data and we need action.”
