Volume 23, Number 8—August 2017
Dispatch
Risk for Death among Children with Pneumonia, Afghanistan
Table 1
Characteristics and clinical outcomes for 639 children <5 years of age with pneumonia hospitalized at Ali Sina Balkhi Regional Hospital, Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, December 2012–March 2013
Characteristics | No. (%) |
---|---|
Sex | |
M | 411 (64.3) |
F |
228 (35.7) |
Age, mo | |
<1 (newborn) | 17 (2.7) |
1–11 | 510 (79.8) |
>12 |
112 (17.5) |
Maternal illiteracy |
549 (85.9) |
Duration of illness >7 d before hospitalization |
102 (16.0) |
Ethnicity | |
Tajik | 300 (46.9) |
Pashtoon | 123 (19.3) |
Uzbek | 77 (12.0) |
Hazara | 101 (15.8) |
Other |
38 (6.0) |
Received antimicrobial drugs before hospitalization | |
Yes | 561 (87.8) |
No | 65 (10.2) |
Unknown |
13 (2.0) |
Vaccination status, vitamin A intake, and nutritional status | |
Bacillus Calmette–Guérin vaccine | 545 (85.2) |
>1 dose of pentavalent vaccine, n = 568 | 436 (76.8) |
Measles vaccine, n = 171 | 107 (62.6) |
>1 dose of vitamin A, n = 345 |
119 (34.5) |
Malnutrition* | |
Detected | 255 (39.9) |
Not detected | 381 (59.6) |
Not evaluated |
3 (0.5) |
Anemia† | |
Detected | 296 (46.3) |
Not detected | 220 (34.4) |
Not evaluated |
123 (19.3) |
Both malnutrition and anemia, n = 514 |
126 (24.5) |
Very severe pneumonia‡ |
532 (83.3) |
Clinical outcome, n = 617 | |
Discharged well | 542 (87.9) |
Death | 75 (12.1) |
*Defined by weight/age z score <–2, and the z score value was calculated by using World Health Organization Anthro software, version 3.2.2 9 (http://www.who.int/childgrowth/software/en/).
†Defined according to the World Health Organization (4) and Janus et al. (5).
‡Severity classified according to World Health Organization (3). Very severe pneumonia is defined as cough or difficulty breathing with 1 of the following: central cyanosis, difficulty feeding, convulsions, lethargy, loss of consciousness, severe respiratory distress.
References
- World Health Organization. Afghanistan: health profile. 2014 [cited 2014 May 24]. http://www.who.int/gho/countries/afg.pdf
- World Health Organization. Pocket book of hospital care for children: guidelines for the management of common illnesses with limited resources. Geneva: The Organization; 2005.
- World Health Organization. Haemoglobin concentrations for the diagnosis of anaemia and assessment of severity. Vitamin and mineral nutrition information system. WHO/NMH/NHD/MNM/11.1. Geneva: The Organization; 2011.
- Nair H, Simões EA, Rudan I, Gessner BD, Azziz-Baumgartner E, Zhang JS, et al.; Severe Acute Lower Respiratory Infections Working Group. Global and regional burden of hospital admissions for severe acute lower respiratory infections in young children in 2010: a systematic analysis. Lancet. 2013;381:1380–90. DOIPubMed
- Sanaei Dashti A, Abdinia B, Karimi A. Nasopharyngeal carrier rate of Streptococcus pneumoniae in children: serotype distribution and antimicrobial resistance. Arch Iran Med. 2012;15:500–3.PubMed
1These authors contributed equally to this article.