Molecular Characterization of Rotavirus Strains Circulating in Enugu Nigeria: 2011 to 2016

Abstract

Rotavirus gastroenteritis is a major public health concern globally, estimated to cause 215,000 deaths among children < 5 years of age in 2013; with majority of mortality occurring in developing countries. In 2013, it was estimated that Nigeria was the second country with the highest number of rotavirus deaths. Monitoring of circulating rotavirus strains in Enugu, Nigeria is part of ongoing rotavirus surveillance before the introduction of rotavirus vaccination. A total of 2694 stool samples were collected from enrolled under 5 years old children with diarrhoea between January 2011 and December 2016 and tested the virus using an antigen enzyme immunoassay. Randomly selected rotavirus positive samples were further characterized by rotavirus genotype methods to identify the G and P types circulating during the study period. Rotavirus was detected in 1242 (46%) of the 2694 samples collected over the six years period. Of these, 867 were randomly selected for genotyping. G and P types could be assigned for 832 samples (96%), while 31 (3.6%) could only #

Prevalence and associated factors to rotavirus infection in children less than 5 years in Enugu State, Nigeria

“…The prevalence of the disease in this study is similar to the results of previous works in Lagos state, South Western Nigeria [2,4,23] and in Enugu State, South Eastern Nigeria [31] who reported 22.3%, 37.5%, 45.3% and 46% prevalence respectively. It is also similar to other studies conducted in Africa, including 22.73% prevalence reported in Burkina Faso [10], and 29%, 29% and 30% prevalence for Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Ethiopia respectively [20].…”

“…The finding that rotavirus prevalence decreased with increase in age is supported by results from several other studies [7,8,14,21,31]. The reason for increased susceptibility of the 0-12 months age group to the disease is assumed to be due to the high exposure of children in this group to contaminated materials.…”

“…Other studies have shown that rotavirus infection slightly peaked in the drier months of December-April [25,29,31]. In the larger African geographical context, the seasonality of RV infections varied across Africa, reflecting the difference in the climatic conditions [20].…”

“…This is similar to the findings from previous studies. Higher but insignificant rotavirus in males than females has been reported [3], while others have reported significantly higher infections in males than females [21,31]. The reasons for the difference in detection rate between males and females are however, not known.…”

Group A Rotavirus G1P[6] Associated Fatalities in Diarrheic Nigerian Infants, Possible Impact of Enterovirus Environmental Enteric Dysfunction, and Implications for Rota-Vaccinology

“…Recently, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Democratic Republic of Congo were estimated to have contributed approximately half (49%) of the global infant rotavirus death in year 2013. 10 Yet, of these numerous infant mortalities from RVA diarrhea, no single studyparticularly in Nigeria [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] -have specified a genotype or provided the DNA sequences of such strain encountered in the mortality of any child. Therefore, to fill this existing gap, the mortality of a 9-month-old infant and a cohort of hospitalized children with fatal disease who fell comatose and required emergency intravenous rehydration and oxygen resuscitation during a 2-year hospital-based rotavirus diarrhea research in Nigeria were selected and investigated, to specifically elucidate the molecular identities of the candidate RVA strains that were associated with the morbidity and mortality.…”