Community-acquired bacteremia among hospitalized children in rural Central Africa

Objective: To describe the epidemiology of community-acquired bacteremia in children admitted to a rural hospital in central Africa and to identify useful diagnostic signs or symptoms. Methods: On admission, a blood culture was obtained from all children admitted to Children's Hospital of Lwiro...

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Veröffentlicht in:International journal of infectious diseases 2001, Vol.5 (4), p.180-188
Hauptverfasser: Bahwere, Paluku, Levy, Jack, Hennart, Philippe, Donnen, Philippe, Lomoyo, Wan'ango, Dramaix-Wilmet, Michèle, Hemelof, Wim, Butzler, Jean-Paul, De Mol, Patrick
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Objective: To describe the epidemiology of community-acquired bacteremia in children admitted to a rural hospital in central Africa and to identify useful diagnostic signs or symptoms. Methods: On admission, a blood culture was obtained from all children admitted to Children's Hospital of Lwiro between 1989 and 1990. Clinical and biologic signs of infection and nutritional status were recorded. Results: Among the 779 children included in the study, 15.9% were bacteremic on admission. The rate of bacteremia was the highest among children with jaundice (20/56; 35.7%) and fever (119/487; 24.4%). In contrast, children with severe malnutrition had a lower rate of bacteremia (13.2%) than weight growth retarded or well-nourished children (19.5%) (P = 0.046). Fever was the most useful diagnostic criteria (sensitivity and negative predictive value of 96.0% and 97.8%, respectively) even in severely malnourished children (sensitivity and negative predictive value of 96.4% and 99.1%, respectively). Enterobacteriacea, mostly Salmonella spp, caused 73% of the bacteremia. There was a high rate of resistance to ampicillin and chloramphenicol among the responsible organisms. Only 31 (47.7%) of 65 bacteremic children responded to the combination of ampicillin and gentamicin. The presence of bacteremia on admission did not significantly increase the risk of morality during hospitalization (19.4% compared with 13.5%; P = 0.088). Age less than 12 months and jaundice were independent risk factors for deaths in bacteremic children. Conclusions: Community-acquired bacteremia caused by multiresistant Enterobacteriacea is an important problem of hospitalized well-nourished and malnourished children in central Africa. Fever on admission is a sensitive diagnostic sign, even in malnourished children.
ISSN:1201-9712
1878-3511
DOI:10.1016/S1201-9712(01)90067-0