Background: Rubella also known as German measles; a contagious viral infection caused by rubella virus, transmitted by respiratory droplets and causes generally a mild disease characterized by rash and fever primarily in children.
Objective: This review was aimed at determining the impact of the rubella scourge across the geopolitical zones of Nigeria.
Methods: Published twenty eight (28) articles that satisfied defined set of criteria as year of publication, geographical distribution, age range, sample size, type of antibody detected, method of diagnosis and gestational periods of the subjects were selected for further analysis from the PubMed online search engine. The articles covered the six geo-political zones of the country with no consistency in the ages cut–off points, the gender whether male or female or both in the study. Two methods of diagnosis; Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) and Haemagglutination Inhibition (HI) test were used to diagnose the infection in the articles.
Results: According to the results, south western part of Nigeria reported research works Congenital Rubella Syndrome (CRS) were detected only in 20 patients from south–south zone.
Conclusion: It was concluded that the infection exists in Nigeria, particularly in pregnant women who predispose the babies to CRS, hence the need for initiation and institutionalization of rubella vaccine programme in Nigeria.
