Anti-rubella antibodies seroprevalence among pregnant women, attending antenatal

Introduction

Nowadays, viral infections are increasingly common worldwide (Baker et al., 2022). One of these is rubella. Although this disease is benign, it affects both children and adults. It is responsible for numerous intrauterine complications in pregnancy, which can cause a series of malformations of the embryo, death of the fetus, and premature delivery in the primary infection case among pregnant women (Camejo and Méndez, 2023). In the world, the major epidemics of the disease have occurred in developed countries. This is the case of Great Britain in 1940, Sweden in 1951 and the United Kingdom in 2006, Sweden in 1951 and the United States of America in 1964. In developing countries, an epidemic occurred in Panama in the mid-1980s. Alone in the United States, more than 20,000 congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) cases have been reported (Berg, 2022). In 2010, the incidence burden was estimated at between 90 and 121 cases per 100,000 live births, with the African and South-East Asian regions expected to hold the highest figures (Vynnycky et al., 2016). An integral part of public health, and linked to the risk of infection among pregnant women,, the United States of America and Canada, have developed vaccines to combate rubella and congenital rubella syndrome (World Health Organization, 2018). As a result, many countries that have introduced these rubella vaccines into their national programs continue to steadily increase. Indeed, it was reported that as of December 2018, 168 out of 194 countries had introduced rubella vaccine, and global coverage was estimated at 69%. Reported cases of rubella have decreased by 97%, from 670,894 cases in 102 countries in 2000 to 14,621 cases in 151 countries in 2018 (World Health Organization, 2018). In contrast to these countries, rubella remains a real public health problem in developing countries (countries in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East (Lambert et al., 2015). Moreover, it is estimated that the magnitude of congenital rubella syndrome for countries without rubella vaccine policy can be very large (Su et al., 2021).

For example in 1996, there were nearly 22,000 congenital rubella cases in Africa and nearly 46,000 in Southeast Asia (Masresha et al., 2018). Gabon, a central African country is not immune to the antics of this rubella burden. Despite its inclusion in the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), implementation of the rubella vaccine in primary health care centers leaves much to be desired, especially in rural areas (Ategbo et al., 2010), there are no rubella screening programs among pregnant women but rather a detection of immunity in them, towards the disease. Thus, the magnitude of the problem is unknown. The lack of data on the seroprevalence of the virus responsible for the disease among pregnant women in this country therefore prompted the setting up of this study, with the general objective of assessing the seroprevalence of rubella antibodies among pregnant women attending antenatal care at the Sino-Gabonese Friendship Hospital in Franceville