Data for Surveillance of respiratory viruses in the outpatient setting in rural coastal Kenya : baseline epidemiological observations

Methods

We report epidemiological data obtained through surveillance of respiratory viruses at nine outpatient health facilities within the Kilifi Health and Demographic Surveillance System, Kilifi County, coastal Kenya, between January and December 2016. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from individuals of all ages presenting with acute respiratory infection (ARI) symptoms (up to 15 swabs per week per facility) and screened for 15 respiratory viruses using real-time PCR.

Paediatric inpatient surveillance at Kilifi County Hospital for respiratory viruses provided comparative data. Results Over the year, 5,647 participants were sampled, of which 3,029 (53.7%) were aged <5 years. At least one target respiratory virus was detected in 2,380 (42.2%) of the samples; the most common being rhinovirus 18.6% (1,050), influenza virus 6.9% (390), coronavirus 6.8% (387), parainfluenza virus 6.6% (371), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) 3.9% (219) and adenovirus 2.7% (155).

Virus detections were higher among <5-year-olds compared to older children and adults (50.3% vs 32.7%, respectively; χ2(1) =177.3, P=0.0001). Frequency of viruses did not differ significantly by facility (χ2(8) =13.38, P=0.072). However, prevalence was significantly higher among inpatients than outpatients in <5-year-olds for RSV (22.1% vs 6.0%; χ2(1) = 159.4, P=0.0001), and adenovirus (12.4% vs 4.4%, χ2(1) =56.6, P=0.0001).

Conclusions Respiratory virus infections are common amongst ARI outpatients in this coastal Kenya setting, particularly in young children. Rhinovirus predominance warrants further studies on the health and socio-economic implications. RSV and adenovirus were more commonly associated with severe disease.

Further analysis will explore epidemiological transmission patterns with the addition of virus sequence data.<br><br>Data record consists of 7 data files, in .do, .dta and .tab format, a readme file, and a data dictionary guide to the data. Access to the dataset is partially restricted as it contains sensitive information on participants. Accompanying documentation is available under open access.

All statistical analysis was conducted using STATA version 13.1. How the data analysis was conducted or new variables generated is described in Supplementary File 5.