Research Article - Current Pediatric Research (2024) Volume 28, Issue 9

Epidemiological trends, clinical presentation, management and outcomes of acute respiratory infections in children admitted to Kara teaching hospital.

Introduction: According to Word Health Organization (WHO) in 2015, Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) are responsible for around three (03) million deaths per year in developing countries. The main of this study was to describe the epidemiological, clinical, therapeutic and outcome of ARI in children at Kara teaching hospital. Methodology: This was a descriptive study on the medical records of children from 1 month to 15 years hospitalized in pediatric unit from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2016. The main parameters studied were the medical history of allergy, the season, the clinical and radiological signs, the treatment and outcome. Results: ARI accounted for 8% of hospitalizations, mainly affected the children under 5 years of age (81%) specially the infants (54.6%). The sex ratio was 1.62. The reasons for consultation were dominated by cough (84.6%), fever (81.7%) and breathing difficulties (34.8%). Tachypnea (57.1%), bronchial groans (52.4%), signs of struggle (35.9%) and crackling groans (34.4%) were the dominant clinical respiratory signs. According to the classification of Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), there was severe pneumonia in 37.4%, pneumonia in 40.3%. The chest x-ray (47.6%) showed flaky (46.1%) and linear (38.5%) opacities. The main topographic forms were bronchopneumonia (51.3%), rhinobronchitis (26.4%) and bronchitis (13.6%). The co-morbidities were undernutrition (9.9%) and HIV infection (8.8%). Antibiotic therapy was used in 96.3% of cases. The average hospital stay was 4.6 days. The lethality was 5.5%. Conclusion: The morbidity and mortality linked to ARI remains high. The efforts remain to be made for prevention and early management of cases.

Author(s):

Segbedji KAR, Tchagbele OB*, Talboussouma SM, Takassi OE, Agrigna H, Sadio Tiokang AJ, Atakouma YD, Azoumah KD

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