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Background: A large number of acute febrile illnesses have an infectious aetiology and many of them are associated with thrombocytopenia. The objective was to study the clinical and laboratory profile of febrile children with thrombocytopenia, associated clinical complications and assess the relationship between platelet levels and severity of disease.Methods: The study was carried out in 180 children up to the age of 18 years, seen in Out Patient Department as well as those admitted in the wards of Department of Paediatrics of a 999 bedded hospital in North India from July 2016 to June 2017.Results: The commonest causes of thrombocytopenia in our study were Viral Fever (other than dengue and chikungunya) 27.78% (50), followed by Dengue 22.2% (40), enteric fever 12.22% (22), chikungunya 11.11% (20), malaria 8.33% (15), septicaemia 5.55% (10), ITP 5.55% (10), haematological malignancy 1.67% (03) and megaloblastic anaemia 1.11%(2). Bleeding manifestations were present in 19.45 % of patients and the commonest sites were skin and mucous membranes. Bleeding manifestations were seen most commonly in children with a platelet count less than <20,000/μl.Conclusions: Viral fevers (non-specific) followed by dengue and chikungunya were the most common causes of fever with thrombocytopenia.

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Context: Dengue epidemic causes a wide spectrum of illness ranging from mild asymptomatic illness to severe fatal dengue. The cumulative dengue diseases burden has attained an unprecedented proportion in recent times with a sharp increase in the size of the human population at risk. Aims: Use of the WHO criteria (2012) for triage of dengue patients in an epidemic in a developing country with resource crunch of trained manpower and infrastructure. Settings and Design: The study was a retrospective and descriptive study carried out in a tertiary center in New Delhi, India during the dengue epidemic of 2013. Materials and Methods: Triage of dengue cases were done in an outpatient department setting as per latest WHO guidelines 2012 and only those cases with danger signs or severe dengue were admitted. A combination of serological studies involving nonstructural protein 1 antigen, IgM and IgG antibodies were used for diagnosis. Statistical Analysis Used: Statistical analysis was done by SPSS version 19 and P < 0.05 was considered signifi cant. Results: We studied the clinical, biochemical and serological profi le of the inpatients retrospectively. Active participation of parents has to be utilized to augment the monitoring of patients in a developing country with manpower and infrastructure resources crunch. Conclusion: In a developing country like India, with an ever exploding population, an epidemic of dengue causes a severe manpower and resources' crunch. Use of the WHO criteria for triage of dengue patients in an epidemic can help in effective management of dengue cases in an epidemic situation.

INTRODUCTIONAcute respiratory tract infections (ARI) are the most common illnesses in childhood. ARI comprises of as much as 50% of all illnesses in children less than 5 years old. It also comprises of 30% of all illnesses in children aged 5-12 years. There are many factors like infecting agents, environmental factors and host factors which determine the type of respiratory tract illnesses and their frequency.Amongst the host factors, improvement in nutrition has been considered to be the most important factor contributing to decrease in mortality and morbidity due to ARIs in children of developing countries.1 Recently, amongst all the nutrients, zinc deficiency has gained a lot of attention. Zinc deficiency is associated with impaired ABSTRACT Background: Zinc has a major role in improving immune function and decreasing morbidity in various infectious diseases like acute respiratory tract infections, diarrhoeal diseases etc. The objective of the study was to study the effect of zinc supplementation on clinical manifestations, progress of illness and duration of acute respiratory infections. Methods: A randomized double blind controlled study was conducted in the Paediatric ward of a tertiary care hospital in New Delhi in 50 children aged 2 to 60 months. Children with previous episodes of wheezing, severe malnutrition, congenital heart diseases, pneumonia, history of taking multiple micronutrient formulations or zinc for any intercurrent illnesses like diarrhoea in the previous month prior to admission and history of any known immunodeficiency disease or on any immunosuppressive medications(steroids) or anti malignancy treatment were excluded. Both placebo (syrup base) and zinc syrup (20 mg/5 mL elemental zinc as zinc sulfate) were given orally for a period of 14 days to the respective groups. Statistical analysis used: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 22.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.). Chi-square test was done for qualitative variables and t-test was used for quantitative variables. P<0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The mean age of zinc group was 22.77 months ) and that of placebo group was 22.86 months (SD -5.88) with a p value of 0.98 which was not statistically significant. There were no significant differences in the clinical features in the two groups before starting therapy or after treatment at 24, 48 and 72 hours (P>0.05). Conclusions: Zinc supplementation during episode of ARI did not show any substantial benefit in reducing duration or morbidity in children aged 2-60 months.

Background: Exclusive breastfeeding is considered a major public health intervention to promote both child and maternal health. Introduction and awareness of infant milk substitutes among mothers appear as a threat to this important practice.Methods: The study is an observational cross-sectional study using a questionnaire containing socio-demographic variables. The study was conducted among 300 mothers who reported to immunization clinic and paediatrics OPD of a BFHI accredited hospital in Delhi. Data collected in the study has been analysed using SPSS version 21.0 and MS-Excel. Student ‘t’ test for quantitative variables and ‘chi square test’ for categorical variable have been used for statistical significance. p-value <0.05 was considered to be significant.Results: In this study 78.7% mothers intended to breastfeed. 71.3% knew that breastfeeding should be continued up to 2 years and 96.3% knew exclusive breastfeed should be given till 6months. Major source of knowledge were doctors and elders of society. However, 49.6% mothers started breastmilk substitutes before 6 months of age. Major causes that appeared as barriers against exclusive breastfeeding were insufficient quantity of milk (23.4%), child refusal (61%) and maternal health problems (15.6%).Conclusions: Despite good knowledge about breastfeeding among upper middle-class mothers, practice of exclusive breastfeeding remains suboptimal. There is a need for more reinforcement upon importance of breastfeeding, its benefits for both mother and baby so as to foster the practice.