Volume 59, Issue 326, February 2023

Review of cases of diarrhea among infants in Africa: Causative organisms, detection methods and infant age distribution

Abidemi David Adetulubo, Oluwole Moses David^♦, Pius Olalekan Adeola

Department of Microbiology, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria

^♦Corresponding author
Department of Microbiology, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Diarrhoea is one of the most common health problems in Africa. This faecal-orally transmitted disease is responsible for the death of 1.9 million children under five years with a high proportion from resource-poor nations. The objective of this study is to review existing articles on the incidence of diarrhoea among infants in Africa. In this study different databases which include PubMed, Google Scholar and CrossRef were searched for articles published in Africa and the year range between 2000 to 2020. The study design included the population involved (in the hospital and community) and the results were reviewed. In this study, a total of 234,568 subjects were out of which 57,222 were positive. Infants with the age range from 25 to 60 months were diagnosed in this study while the least number was within the age group of 13-24 months. The sex distribution of the children diagnosed with diarrhoea was very close. A total of diagnosed children reported were from Nigeria (n = 32,443 (56.7%)), followed by Kenya with 6,110 infected children. The last occurrence was reported in Namibia with 35 cases. Data from the hospital had the highest occurrence. Among the causative agents detected, viruses had the highest occurrence followed by protozoa. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) followed by cultural methods were the two main methods used in the diagnosis of the infection. This study shows the incidence rate and occurrence of infantile in African countries, the causative agents responsible for diarrhoea among infants and their respective distribution.

Keywords: Diarrhoea, infants, faecal-oral, enteropathogen, children

Discovery, 2023, 59, e20d1016

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Published: February 2023