Epidemiological Profile of Childhood Communicable Diseases in Al-Najaf Governorate, Iraq: A retrospective Analysis (2019-2023)

Background Understanding the epidemiological features of communicable diseases in children can guide interventions to prevent and control infectious diseases. Methods This was an observational descriptive cross-sectional study conducted retrospectively by retrieving the records of the modifiable infectious diseases affected children between (0-18 years) of both sexes, person place time epidemiologic model was used to describe the profile of infectious diseases of Al-Najaf governorate during the period 2019 -2023. Findings revealed that among the total 5175 cases of children studied during five years period, male children were predominates (53.9%), the most affected age groups were 1-4 years and 5-12 years. The most common diseases were droplet and air borne transmitted diseases(54.4%) mainly COVID-19 viral infection followed by meningitis and measles , these diseases were highly distributed in the north regions of the governorate , the second most common infectious disease were the water and food borne diseases such as typhoid fever and hepatis A which were located in the south regions, other serious diseases were remerged in the governorate such as Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever and measles that took the epidemic profile.Conclusion Results revealed that there is a public health concern in Najaf Governorate regarding communicable diseases which affected predominantly males between 3 and12 years, with noticeable trends in vaccine-preventable diseases like Pertussis, Mumps, Meningitis, and Hepatitis A. Emerging outbreaks such as Meningitis, and waterborne diseases like Typhoid Fever as well as the severe viral zoonotic disease (, parasitic disease like cutaneous and visceral Leishmaniasis was documented.