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 Bacteraemia is a common cause of children presenting to the paediatric emergency with acute febrile illness. Blood cultures remain the gold standard for detection of bacteraemia but the positivity is low and also takes time to show positive results. A rapid and reliable biomarker like procalcitonin (PCT), C-reactive protein (CRP), total leucocyte count (TLC), and neutrophil-lymphocyte count ratio (NLCR) can be used to identify febrile children with greater risk for bacteraemia or serious bacterial infections. This would be very helpful to start early treatment of bacteraemia with antibiotics. METHODS The study was an observational cohort study conducted in the Department of Paediatrics of a tertiary care hospital in North India in children between age group 6 months to 12 years presenting with fever of > 100.4° F for 2 - 7 days. Blood samples were sent for PCT, CRP, TLC, NLCR and blood cultures. RESULTS The most sensitive biomarker was total leukocyte count (47.36 %) followed by the neutrophil percentage (26.32 %), C-reactive protein (21.05 %), and procalcitonin (15.79 %). The most specific biomarker was procalcitonin (75.14 %) followed by C-reactive protein (58.56 %), neutrophil percentage (22.65 %) and total leukocyte count (11.05 %). The only biomarker that was statistically significant between the bacteraemia and non-bacteraemia group in the present study was total leukocyte count (P – value < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS The sensitivity and specificity of each single biomarker is low and hence these cannot be used singly to predict bacteraemia. There should be a combination of biomarkers with adequate sensitivity and specificity that can be used to create an algorithm to aid in diagnosis and prognostication. KEYWORDS Procalcitonin, C-Reactive Protein, Blood Culture, Acute Febrile Patient
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