PREVALENCE OF ROTA VIRUS INFECTION AMONG CHILDREN BELOW FIVE YEARS OF AGE AT YERWA MATERNITY AND CHILD HEALTHCARE CENTER MAIDUGURI.
Abstract
Acute infective gastroenteritis is a major global health problem which manifest as three or more watery or loose bowel evacuations in 24 hours period that may last several days with fever and vomiting and a common cause of morbidity and mortality in children. This study aimed at detecting the prevalence of rotavirus infection among children below 5 years of age at Yerwa maternity and child healthcare centre Maiduguri. A total of 200 stool samples were randomly collected and assayed for rotavirus antigen using Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) kit. The study revealed that 19(9.5%) samples were positive for rotavirus antigen. There was higher prevalence rate among male children 10(5.0%) than female 9(4.5%) (P>0.05).The highest and lowest prevalence rate of rotavirus infection of 63.2% (12/19), 36.8% (7/19) and 0 %( 0/19) were found among children aged 0-1 year, 2-3 year and 4-5 years (P>0.05) respectively. This study recommends public health awareness, advocacy and sustainable initiatives to promote rotavirus vaccination recently introduced by the federal government of Nigeria as part of the routine national immunisation programme.
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