RESEARCH ARTICLE
Sero-Prevalence of Antenatal Rubella in UITH
O.O Agbede1, O.O Adeyemi1, *, A.W.O Olatinwo2, T.J Salisu3, O.M Kolawole4
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2011Volume: 4
First Page: 10
Last Page: 16
Publisher ID: TOPHJ-4-10
DOI: 10.2174/1874944501004010010
Article History:
Received Date: 23/07/2010Revision Received Date: 09/03/2011
Acceptance Date: 01/05/2011
Electronic publication date: 6/7/2011
Collection year: 2011
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Rubella virus is a teratogen that may induce foetal death or Congenital Rubella Syndrome in the newborn. Studies carried out in Nigeria, have recorded 68.5% prevalence in pregnant women in the south-west and 54.1% in the North-west. There has been a dearth of information in the North central. Sentinel studies have placed the incidence of rubella on a seasonal distribution, with an average of 5-9-year variable epidemic pattern.
A descriptive study was carried out on pregnant women between July and September 2009, to establish baseline data on the sero-prevalence of antenatal rubella in pregnant women in Ilorin. A total of 92 pregnant women in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy were recruited from the antenatal clinics of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital. A 3ml blood sample was collected from each consenting subject and serum assayed for Rubella IgG/ IgM antibodies by indirect ELISA test. Anti-rubella virus antibodies were reported in the sera of 14 pregnant women that participated in the study. A prevalence of 16.3% was recorded. The primigravidae had a higher prevalence (27.0%) than the multigravidae (12.0%). There was a gradual rise in seroprevalence from first trimester pregnancies (13.0%) to second trimester pregnancies (19.1%).
High seroprevalence of rubella infections during organogenesis poses high risk to foetus. Since 85% of the subjects were susceptible to rubella virus infection, it is advisable for health planners to prevent further occurrence of antenatal rubella that may result to congenital rubella anomalies by the immunisation of women of child bearing age.