Children mortality from communicable diseases in Child Teaching Hospital

Abstract EN

Hospital based data on mortality rate from communicable diseases is a reflection of what is obtainable in a community at large.

Therefore; data obtained from such review is usually beneficial in re-evaluating existing services and in improving facilities and patients care.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the mortality pattern of children admitted into the Children Teaching Hospital from February 2004 to December 2006.

There were 3, 267 admissions during the study period.

The medical charts of all patients aged one month to 16 years were recorded, neonatal and surgical cases were excluded.

One hundred and seventy one deaths occurred in the children giving mortality rate of 5.2 %.

Fifty two patients (88 %) were under 5 years.

Most of the deaths occurred between January and March.

The commonest causes of death were pneumonia, bacterial meningitis; while 12 % of patients were above 5 years of age, the visceral leishmaniasis and pneumonia were the predominant causes.

Health intervention programs such as integrated management of childhood illnesses and primary health care, which have been shown to reduce childhood deaths significantly, need to be intensified in order to achieve the MDG4 by 2015.