SEROPREVALENCE AND MOLECULAR DETECTION OF RUBELLA VIRUS AMONG WOMEN OF REPRODUCTIVE AGE IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

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SEROPREVALENCE AND MOLECULAR DETECTION OF RUBELLA VIRUS AMONG WOMEN OF REPRODUCTIVE AGE IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

 

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Rubella is a mild viral illness commonly known as German measles though its etiologic agent differs from Measles (Nayeri and Thung, 2013; NICE, 2013). It is also called „three day measles‟ because of the short duration of the rash (Bubuk et al., 2002; Elias and Ruselle, 2014). Rubella rash starts on the face and neck and spreads centrifugally to the trunk and extremities within 24 hours (Heymann, 2008; Pickering et al., 2012; Elias and Ruselle, 2014). The rash begins to fade on the face on the second day and disappears throughout the body by the end of the third day (Gabbe et al., 2002; Heymann, 2008; Elias and Ruselle, 2014). The disease is contagious and can affect people of all ages and sex (Hobman et al., 2007). The name Rubella was coined from Latin and it means “little red”. Rubella was initially considered to be a variant of measles or scarlet fever and thus called “third exanthematous disease of childhood”. It was first described as a separate disease in the German medical literature by German physicians, de Bergan and Orlow, hence the common name “German measles” (Lee and Bowden, 2000; Atkinson, 2011).

The etiologic agent of the disease is Rubella virus (Deka, et al., 2006; Murry, 2006). It is an enveloped, non-segmented, positive-stranded, Ribonucleic acid (RNA) virus which replicates in the cytoplasm (Frey, 1994; Hobman et al., 2007). It is the only member of the Rubi virus genus belonging to the family; toga viridae (Lee and Bowden, 2000; Chantler et al., 2001; Heymann, 2008).

The rubella virus genome consists of less than 10,000 nucleotides and encodes five proteins including three structural proteins: E1 glycoprotein, E2 glycoprotein and capsid protein and two non-structural proteins: P150 and P90. The E1 glycoprotein is a structural glycoprotein with neutralising epitopes (WHO, 2000; Chantler et al., 2001; Plotkin and Reef, 2004). According to a report on the meeting organised by World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2004 to discuss the standardization of nomenclature for describing the genetic characteristics of wild-type rubella virus, the E1 gene sequence between genome positions 8731 and 9469 was recommended as a target site for routine genotyping analysis for molecular epidemiology (WHO, 2005).

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SEROPREVALENCE AND MOLECULAR DETECTION OF RUBELLA VIRUS AMONG WOMEN OF REPRODUCTIVE AGE IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA