MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF ADENOVIRUS AND ROTAVIRUS ASSOCIATED DIARRHOEA AMONG UNDER-FIVES IN TWO TERTIARY HOSPITALS IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA

Background: Viral diarrhoea continues to be a challenge among children under five years of age in Nigeria. While other non-viral agents of diarrhoea have been well documented, the agents of viral diarrhoea especially their genetic diversity have not been well studied in our locality, hence this study. Method: This was a cross-sectional study carried out at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) and NnamdiAzikiwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH) in Benin City and Nnewi respectively. Three hundred and thirty participants were recruited for the study using stratified random sampling, aged between 1 and 5 years. All the diarrhoeic stools had their DNA/RNA extracted using the Quick-RNA Viral MiniPrep Kit and stored at -80°C for polymerase chain reaction. Sequences of the adenovirus were done using a Big Dye DNA sequencing kit. Bioinformatics was done using R packages in R studio v3 software. Data from the study were analyzed using chi-square and level of significance expressed using p-value (p<0.05). Results: Adenoviral diarrhoea was higher in Benin City (18 11.8%) than Nnewi (11 6.1%). Females (55.2%) were more infected than the males (44.8%) (p>0.05). Among the population studied, there was no rotavirus genome detected. Ten (10) adenovirus sequences from serotype 40 were identified and deposited into the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (Genbank: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) under the accession number ON128719 - ON128728. The prevalence of adenovirus in the study locality is 8.7%. More females were infected than the males, although not statistically significant (p>0.05). Conclusion: The study also concluded that sex had no relationship with the spread of adenovirus diarrhoea among under-fives (p>0.05).