Introduction: Malaria particularly affects children in sub-Saharan African countries. This study aimed to investigate the factors associated with death in cases of severe childhood malaria to better understand the determinants of death in these children. Patients and Methods: This cohort, descriptive and analytical study was conducted from April 1 to August 15, 2015, at the CNHU-HKM pediatric clinic in Cotonou. Recruitment was exhaustive for all patients under 15 years of age who were admitted for severe malaria, as confirmed by thick smear microscopy. Results: Among the 1774 admitted patients, 449 had severe malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum (i.e., a hospital frequency of 25.31%).The age group most affected consisted of children younger than 60 months of age (73%); female predominance was noted. The lethality rate of malaria was 13.1% (n = 59). The factors associated with death were coma (p = 0.032), poor convulsive status epilepticus (p = 0.08) and bacterial co-infection by gram negative bacteria (p = 0.021) with respectively correlations coefficient of 0.003, 3.940 and 2.424. Conclusion: Reduction of the malaria mortality rates in Benin hospitals will depend on appropriate management of poor prognostic factors, such as coma, bacterial co-infection and convulsive illness.
Objective: Infectious pleurisy is a frequent hospitalization indication in pediatrics in developing countries. This study aims to describe infectious pleurisies' features and to identify its death factors in three teaching hospitals in Benin. Design: This was a prospective, descriptive and analytical study including children aged 01 months to 17 years who were hospitalized in pediatrics in the three hospitals for pleurisy from September to December 2019. Results: Among the 3379 children admitted, 25 presented with an infectious pleurisy, making a hospital frequency of 0.74%. The sex ratio was 0.8. The majority (19/25) of the children were less than 5 years old. The mean age was 38 ± 5.88 months. Most of the parents had a low education (42/50) and socio-economic status (18/25). The main symptoms were fever (25 cases), dyspnea (23 cases) and cough (22 cases). The majority of the children (21/25) were up-to-date in regards with the Expanded Immunization Program (EIP) vaccines and none had received non-EIP vaccines. Almost all children (24 cases) had a respiratory distress (24/25).
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