Hospital-Based Preliminary Assessment of Rotavirus Infection in Children with Gastroenteritis in Ogun State, Nigeria

Background: Rotavirus remains the most common cause of viral gastroenteritis in developing countries, with over 450,000 deaths annually in children below five years. In developing countries such as Nigeria, routine rotavirus screening is not performed; hence the actual burden of rotavirus infection among children is not well known.
Objective: This study was designed to determine the prevalence, associated symptoms and risk factors of rotavirus gastroenteritis among children under five years in Ogun State, Nigeria.
Methods: Stool samples were collected from 186 children from 3 different hospitals in Ogun State and assayed for rotavirus antigen by Enzyme Immunoassay. A Structured questionnaire was administered to obtain socio-demographic and clinical information from each of the study participants.
Results: Sixty-four (34.4%) of the samples tested positive for rotavirus antigen with the highest rate (54.5%) of infection recorded in children aged 0-6 months. The male to female ratio was 1.5:1. The frequency of occurrence of clinical features among diarrheic children included fever, vomiting and dehydration (40.6%), vomiting and dehydration (25%) and fever (9.4%). Gender, age, occupation of parent and attendance of daycare/school were found to be the significant predisposing factors for rotavirus infection (P< 0.05).
Conclusion: This preliminary report shows that rotavirus is the major cause of gastroenteritis in children. It is therefore imperative to include rotavirus as one of the agents being routinely screen for in gastroenteritis cases and more importantly include rotavirus vaccination in Expanded Programme for Immunization (EPI) in Nigeria.