Epidemiological Pattern of Rubella in Africa: A Review of Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries

Rubella (German measles) is vaccine-preventable and a viral disease of public health importance. It presents with mild febrile rash illness, attendant congenital sequelae and foetal death. This paper seeks to do a review of the epidemiology of rubella in selected sub-Saharan African countries. This is a review of literature involving data triangulation of rubella surveillance data. World Health Organization (WHO)rubella surveillance data (2015-2018) was available online to present the seasonal/time-variation. Data were extracted from the site into Microsoft Excel over three months (October-December, 2018). Univariate data analysis was done using SPSS-23, and data were presented with appropriate tables and charts to show the trend.

Epidemiologic findings showed that the periodicity of rubella varies across countries in Africa, with seasonal variation across the four sub-regions. In the West Africa sub-region, sharp increases occurred in reported cases in January, with peaks in March-April. In Nigeria, a West African country, available data showed that seasonal peak occurs in the first four months (Jan-April) of the year, with most of the burden among those below fifteen years of age affecting both sexes and incidence cuts across both rural and urban areas. However, in the Central sub-region, spikes generally occur between February and March with troughs from September to November. In the East sub-region, dual peaks occur in March-April and in September-October; in the South sub-region, unique annual seasonality with few cases reported in January-June each year. The peak incidence of rubella has been observed to be a function of the seasonal peaks/variation in Africa. Therefore, the knowledge of this seasonal variation can be leveraged upon by Governments to control the disease through scaling up of awareness creation and surveillance during the identified peaks and beyond.