PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Rubella, (German measles) is vaccine-preventable and a viral disease of public health importance. It presents with mild febrile rash illness, attendant congenital sequel 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 literatures involving data triangulation of rubella surveillance data. World Health Organization (WHO)rubella surveillance data (2015-2018) available online was used to present the seasonal/time-variation. Data was extracted from the site into Microsoft Excel over three months period (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 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, affects 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 in 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.
摘要：
风疹,（德国麻疹）是疫苗可预防的，是一种具有公共卫生重要性的病毒性疾病。它表现为轻度发热性皮疹疾病，随之而来的先天性后遗症和胎儿死亡。本文旨在对某些撒哈拉以南非洲国家的风疹流行病学进行综述。这是涉及风疹监测数据三角测量的文献综述。世界卫生组织（WHO）风疹监测数据（2015-2018年）用于显示季节/时间变化。在三个月的时间内（10月至12月，2018)。使用SPSS-23进行单变量数据分析，并以适当的表格和图表呈现数据以显示趋势。流行病学发现表明，风疹的周期性在非洲国家之间有所不同，在四个次区域之间存在季节性变化。在西非次区域，1月份报告的病例急剧增加，3月至4月达到高峰。在尼日利亚,一个西非国家，现有数据显示，季节性高峰出现在一年的前四个月(1月至4月)，大部分负担发生在15岁以下的人群中，影响农村和城市地区的性别和发病率。然而,在中部地区，高峰通常发生在2月至3月之间，9月至11月出现低谷。在东部分区，双高峰出现在3月至4月和9月至10月；在南方次区域，独特的年度季节性，每年1月至6月报告的病例很少。据观察，风疹的高峰发病率是非洲季节性高峰/变化的函数。因此,政府可以利用对这种季节性变化的认识，通过在确定的高峰及以后扩大提高认识和监测来控制疾病。
