Abstract:
High coverage of measles vaccines and periodic mass campaigns are the key to reaching measles disease elimination and can prevent the reoccurring of measles outbreaks in the country. This study was designed to establish trends of measles laboratory-confirmed cases as well as determine the socio-demographic factors associated with measles cases in Tanzania.
Objective:
This study sought to establish the trends of measles cases and identifying socio-demographic factors that cause recurring measles outbreaks in the country
Methods:
The analytical cross-sectional study applying a quantitative approach was used to determine the trends of measles laboratory-confirmed cases in Tanzania. Systematic random sampling was deployed to select study samples, data were extracted from surveillance database from National Health Laboratory, Quality Assurance and Training Centre (NHLQATC) for the years 2015-2019. Linear regression was used to establish the association between socio- demographic factors and measles outbreaks, P- value less than 0.005 was considered significant statistically at a 95% confidence interval
The software used for data analysis in this study was the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 24).
Results: Among 348 samples of suspected cases between 2015 and 2019, laboratory- confirmed cases were 6 (1.7%). The trend of cases was decreasing in the first three years followed by a surge in the last two years. Cases were higher among males 4/192 (2.4%) and children aged 0 to 5 years 6/198 (2.5%). Children without a history of vaccination were more prone to positive cases compared to vaccinated children. The incidence was higher 2857 per 100,000 population. Residency of individual was a predictor of positive measles case, rural residents were 8.4 more likely to have a positive case of measles (OR = 8.4, 95% CI 2.0 – 73.7, p =0.008).
