Prevalence and factors associated with Group A rotavirus infection among children with acute diarrhea in Mwanza, Tanzania

Abstract

Introduction: Rotavirus infections frequently cause acute gastroenteritis in humans and are the most important cause of severe dehydrating diarrhea in young children in both developed and developing countries. Methodology: This was a prospective cross-sectional, hospital-based study on 300 children ≤ 5 years with acute watery diarrhea who attended Bugando Medical Centre (BMC) and Nyamagana District hospital between May and November 2009. Stool specimens were tested for rotavirus infection using latex agglutination test. Data were cleaned and analyzed using SPSS 11.0. Results: Of 300 children with acute watery diarrhea, 136 (45.3%) were female and the mean age was 12.63 months (SD = 10.4). Sixty-two (20.7%) children were found to have rotavirus infection. Of children with severe malnutrition three (37.5%) were infected with rotavirus. Fifty-two (84%) of children with rotavirus infection were below two years of age. Severe dehydration was present in 48 (16%) children of whom 12 (25%) were infected with rotavirus compared to 18 (16.6%) of 109 children with no dehydration. Living next door to a child with diarrhea was highly associated with rotavirus infection (43% versus 19%; p = 0.036). The mean hospital stay among children with rotavirus infection was 3.66 days versus 2.5 days for those without rotavirus (p = 0.005). Conclusion: Rotavirus infection is prevalent in Mwanza region and contributes to prolonged hospital stay. Proper education on hygiene to control diarrheal diseases among children should be emphasized. Extensive studies to determine the serotypes of rotavirus are warranted in the region before rotavirus vaccine is introduced.

Prevalence and genotypes of Rotavirus among children under 5 years presenting with diarrhoea in Moshi, Tanzania: a hospital based cross sectional study

“…In comparison to other studies done around the world; our findings were similar to studies done in Mali by Ouermi et al [16] and in Tanzania, Mwanza by Temu et al [17] which found prevalence’s of 22.7 and 20.7%, respectively. This similarity could be attributed to the fact that they had the same study duration and both were carried out in hospital settings.…”

Prevalence and factors associated with different pathogens of acute diarrhea in adults in Beijing, China

“…Nausea, place of residence, leukocytosis, and abdominal pain correlated differently with viral and bacterial infections. Many studies have reported that viral pathogens are more likely to be transmitted by person-to-person contact [22][23][24]. Although very few cases were reported to be transmitted by other patients in this study, we found that living in a suburb of Beijing was associated with viral infection.…”

Haze is an important medium for the spread of rotavirus

“…The main transmission route of infectious diarrhea is fecal-oral transmission. Consequently, many studies have conducted analytical investigations of dangerous factors to stop this route of transmission (Dennehy, 2000;Nakawesi et al, 2010;Temu et al, 2012;Wilking et al, 2012); relevant factors include dietary habits, the eating environment, food varieties, eating traditions, food storage conditions, and health and economic conditions. However, our long-term clinical observations have demonstrated that some infectious diarrhea cases are not associated with a suspicious food history or unclean dietary habits.…”