Author(s): El Feel RY, Eldaif WAH, Mustafa ME, Issa MM
Background: infection with rubella virus in children and adults is self limited, mild disease characterized by skin rash, mild upper respiratory symptoms and lymphadenopathy. Primary infection of a pregnant women however, particularly in the first trimester of pregnancy, which may result in a high risk of fetal infection with sever complication. It is extremely important therefore to identify those women who are not immune to rubella and to immunize them. This can be achieved by screening the sera for presence of antibodies to rubella.
Objective: to determine the frequency of anti rubella IgG antibodies among pregnant women attending two antenatal clinics at Khartoum State during June 2012. Materials and methods: this is cross sectional study, involved 80 pregnant women, who their sera samples screened for rubella immunoglobulin G, using ELISA assay as sensitive and reliable procedure.
Result: the mean age is 26.6 years old, 68.8% were in third trimester, 25% in the second, and 16.2% in the first trimester. 68.8% were IgG seropositive and 31.8% seronegative. None of them ever had rubella vaccine.
Conclusion: prevalence of rubella seromarker for previous infection is high.