Introduction: Lack of knowledge and proper feeding practices contribute to higher childhood morbidity and mortality. The aim of the study wasto evaluate the mother’s knowledge and practices in terms of quantity, quality and timing of complementary feeding in infant and young child.Methods: A hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted between June, 2010 to October, 2011, at Kanti Children's Hospital, Nepal, involving 1100 mothers of children from 6 to 24 months of age who attended outpatient department of this hospital, applying systematic sampling technique using semi-structured questionnaire.Results: Eighty-seven percent of mothers had knowledge about the duration of exclusive breast feeding but only 33.0% practiced it and 21.0% breast fed their children up to 3 months. Eighty-seven percent of mothers knew when to start complementary feeding and 53.27% of mothers used the marketed weaning food. lito alone was offered by 28.27% as complementary food. Though 36.6% had proper knowledge of frequency of complementary feeding, only 33.27% were actually practicing it and 9.9% were offering more frequent thanrecommended. About half of the mothers fed their child with the food of appropriate consistency and 66.0% fed with the appropriate amount. But only 15.82% mothers fed their children with ideal frequency, sufficient amount and ideal quality.Conclusions: There was a knowledge and practice gap of duration of exclusive breast feeding and initiation and continuation of ideal complementary feeding. Rate of exclusive breast feeding was on declining trend._______________________________________________________________________________________Keywords: complementary feeding; exclusive breast feeding; infant and young child feeding; ideal feeding._______________________________________________________________________________________

Background: Frontline Health Care Workers are at risk of developing mental and psychological distress during Corona virus disease 2019 pandemic. This study aimed to assess level of stress, anxiety, depression and their associated factors among health care workers during Corona virus disease 2019 pandemic in Nepal.Methods: This is a web based cross-sectional survey conducted among 404 Health Care Workers during early phase of Corona virus disease 2019 pandemic. The participants were selected using convenience sampling technique and were invited to participate via various online networks. Depression, anxiety and stress were assessed using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) and their associated factors were measured using structured questionnaires. Multivariable logistic regression was carried out to determine the associated factors.Results: The symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression among health care workers were found to be 28.9%, 35.6% and 17.0% respectively. Females were found to be 2 fold more likely to have anxiety and depression than male. Nurses were found to be two times more likely to have anxiety than doctors. Laboratory personnel were almost three folds more likely to have anxiety than doctors. Health care workers with insufficient/ no PPE were almost three fold more likely to have depression. health care workers working in high-risk areas had almost 2 fold higher odds of having depression.Conclusions: Health care workers experienced symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression in varied level of severity. This experience was higher among the nurses and laboratory workers than doctors. Pandemic preparedness assuring PPE and appropriate psychological interventions may be beneficial to promote mental health and well-being of health care workers.Keywords: Anxiety; associated factors; depression; health workers; stress

BackgroundAn estimated 2.7 of the 5.9 million deaths in children under 5 years of age occur in the neonatal period. Severe infections contribute to almost a quarter of these deaths. Mortality due to severe infections in developing country settings is substantial despite antibiotic therapy. Effective interventions that can be added to standard therapy for severe infections are required to reduce case fatality.Methods/DesignThis is a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled parallel group superiority trial to investigate the effect of zinc administered orally as an adjunct to standard therapy to infants aged 3 days up to 2 months (59 days) hospitalized with clinical severe infection, that will be undertaken in seven hospitals in Delhi, India and Kathmandu, Nepal. In a 1:1 ratio, we will randomly assign young infants to receive 10 mg of elemental zinc or placebo orally in addition to the standard therapy for a total of 14 days. The primary outcomes hospital case fatality, which is death due to any cause and at any time after enrolment while hospitalized for the illness episode, and extended case fatality, which encompasses the period until 12 weeks after enrolment.DiscussionA previous study showed a beneficial effect of zinc in reducing the risk of treatment failure, as well as a non-significant effect on case fatality. This study was not powered to detect an effect on case fatality, which this current study is. If the results are consistent with this earlier trial, we would have provided strong evidence for recommending zinc as an adjunct to standard therapy for clinical severe infection in young infants.Trial registrationUniversal Trial Number: U1111-1187-6479, Clinical Trials Registry – India: CTRI/2017/02/007966: Registered on February 27, 2017.

BackgroundEarthquakes impact child health in many ways. Diseases occurring immediately following an earthquake have been studied in field based hospitals but studies on the inpatient disease pattern among children without trauma in a permanent hospital setup is lacking.MethodsWe examined the diagnoses of all children without trauma, admitted to Kanti Children’s Hospital, Kathmandu for fifteen-week duration (from 4th week to end of the 18th week) following the 7.8 magnitude Nepal earthquake on 25th April 2015. The admitted children were grouped based on direct effect of earthquake on their family (house damaged or family member injured or dead) and on whether their place of residence was located in an earthquake affected district. Most common diagnoses were identified and their distribution between the aforementioned groups analyzed to examine differences, if any, in disease occurrence or presentation. The fifteen weeks study duration was divided into three parts of five weeks each, to study trends in illness presentation. Variables were compared among various groups using appropriate statistical tests (p < 0.05).ResultsA total of 1057 patients were admitted. The proportion of patients requiring admission for pneumonia, acute gastroenteritis and acute or poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis (AGN/PSGN) was significantly higher among children belonging to earthquake affected districts. Proportion of patients with any infective condition was also significantly higher in this group. Acute gastroenteritis and any infective condition were significantly higher among children from substantially affected families.The proportion of AGN/PSGN among admitted patients increased in successive time categories among patients from affected districts and from substantially affected families. Urinary Tract Infection, bronchiolitis, tuberculosis, pleural effusion, protein energy malnutrition/failure to thrive, nephrotic syndrome, meningitis/meningoencephalitis, epilepsy or seizure disorders, leukemia/malignancies, enteric fever, infective hepatitis and congenital heart disease were not significantly different among children from affected and not affected districts or between substantially affected and not affected families. Patients from substantially affected families were admitted to semi-intensive care ward or ICU in significantly higher proportions (12.6% vs 7.8%, p = 0.014).ConclusionChildren seeking care for certain diseases were more likely to be from earthquake affected families and districts. Those from affected families required critical care more often.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12887-018-1008-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background: Scrub typhus, an important cause of undifferentiated fever, is grossly neglected and often misdiagnosed in low and middle income countries like Nepal. The main aim of this study was to describe the clinico-laboratory profile, drug used in treatment, predictor of PICU admission and therapeutic outcome of serologically confirmed scrub typhus among Nepalese children.Methods: A prospective observational study was carried out in children aged up to 14 years with serologically (IgM ELISA) diagnosed Scrub typhus, admitted in a tertiary care hospital of central Nepal between Jan 2019 to Dec 2019.Results: All 100 children with scrub typhus presented with fever. Other symptoms and sign were cough (29%), abdominal distension (22%) hepatomegaly (45%), splenomegaly (28%), crepitation (10%) and eschar (6%). Similarly, thrombocytopenia (72%), and increased liver enzymes SGPT (51%) and SGOT (62%) were found. Co-infection with dengue (5%) brucella (5%) and UTI (5%) were seen. Thirty six percent has some form of complication. Fifty eight percent of children were treated with azithromycin and 25% treated with doxycycline. The mean length of hospital stay was 6.68 ±2.97 days with a mean duration of defervescence being 30.07 ± 26.65 hours. The increased risk of PICU admission was found in those children with crepitation in chest (OR: 15.17, 95% CI: 3.4-66.8) during presentation and those children not getting azithromycin as treatment (OR: 3.8, 95% CI: 1.2-11.7)Conclusions: Scrub typhus should be considered as a differential diagnosis in any community acquired acute undifferentiated febrile illness regardless of the presence of an eschar. Sepsis, meningitis and pneumonia are important complications. Child having crepitation on presentation has an increased chance admission in critical care unit. The child receiving azithromycin has less chance to land in PICU.Keywords: Clinico-laboratory profile; complications; fever; scrub typhus.

Introduction: Perinatal mortality rate (PMR) in Nepal is still very high. In major hospitals of Nepal, it is still ranging from 20 to 30 per thousand births. This study was carried out to review the different aspects of PMR and classifying them and identify the causes of perinatal and neonatal deaths and assessing the need for improvement in quality of pregnancy and newborn care. Methods: It was a retrospective study carried out in Bharatpur Hospital, Chitawan, Nepal. Data of all stillbirths from 22 weeks of pregnancy and neonatal deaths up to seven days of life was taken from monthly perinatal audit and annual mortality review. The data was taken from July 2017 to Jun 2019. All the perinatal deaths were then classified. Results: Over a two year period, there were total 25,977 births and total death was 369. Thus perinatal mortality rate was 12.3 per thousand births. Still births (fresh and macerated) contributed almost 82.4% of the perinatal deaths and neonatal death contributed 17.6% of total deaths. Deaths related to unexplained intrauterine fetal death (IUFD) showed an increasing trend and have increased by more than 20% in past two years from 39.1% to 60.8%. Deaths due to perinatal asphyxia, neonatal sepsis, respiratory distress syndrome and extreme prematurity were increased. Conclusions: PMR over the two years has shown increasing trend at our institute. There is need to improve antenatal, obstetric as well as intra-partum services to further reduce the still birth as well as deaths due to prematurity, RDS, neonatal sepsis and perinatal asphyxia.

Background: Neonatal sepsis is a major cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. Late onset sepsis (LOS) is associated with community environment or postnatal exposure to hospital environment. Its incidence is rising due to greater survival of preterm neonates and very low birth weight babies. Because of difference in local epidemiology and possible variation with time, regular monitoring and updates on pathogen and their antimicrobial sensitivity pattern is important for prevention and treatment. The objective of this study was to identify the common symptoms and signs and determine the common bacterial isolates and  antibiotic susceptibility pattern of late onset neonatal sepsis. Methods:  This was hospital based prospective observational study conducted among the neonates admitted with diagnosis of late onset neonatal sepsis in Kanti Children’s Hospital from July 2016 to June 2017. Results:  Poor feeding (89.6%), fever/hypothermia (47.2%), excessive/ poor cry (40.8%) and irritability/lethargy (33.6) were the common symptoms. Staphylococcus aureus and Coagulase negative staphylococcus (CONS), the most predominant organisms, were isolated in 66.7%   and 18.5% of culture positive cases respectively. Most of the isolated organisms showed sensitivity to cloxacillin (16/27), amikacin (15/27), ciprofloxacin (14/27), cefotaxime (11/27), cotrimaxazole (6/27) and  amoxyclox (6/27). Conclusion:  Poor feeding, fever/hypothermia, excessive/ poor cry and irritability/lethargy were the common symptoms. This study has indicated possible emergence of Staphylococcus aureus as the dominant cause of late onset neonatal sepsis. Cloxacillin, amikacin, ciprofloxacin and cefotaxime were more efficacious against the commonly isolated bacteria in late onset neonatal sepsis.

Introduction: Neonatal sepsis is the most common cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. The causative organisms of neonatal sepsis are changing and so do their antibiotic sensitivity pattern. So it is important to regularly monitor the change in bacteriological profile and their antimicrobial sensitivity pattern to help update the treatment guidelines of neonates. This study aimed to study the microbiological patterns of neonatal sepsis and their antibiotic susceptibility pattern in a tertiary care centre in Kathmandu. Methods: A prospective study was carried out among cases of neonatal sepsis admitted in Neonatal Intermediate Care Unit (NIMCU) of a tertiary care referral hospital from August 2015 to August 2016. Prospective data were collected with pretested and standardised proforma and analysed using SPSS version 20. Results: Out of 311 neonates admitted over a period of one year with diagnosis of neonatal sepsis, male:female ratio was 2.1:1. Among them 234 (75.2%) cases were of LONS and 77 (24.8%) were of EONS. Blood culture was positive in 47 neonates (15.1%). The organisms isolated included staphylococcus aureus (34.0%), klebsiella (32%), CONS (24%), escherechia coli (6%) and enterobacter (4%). In LOS, gram positive organisms staphylococcus and CONS were the commonest ones (61.4%). In EOS, gram negative organism klebsiella (65%) was more common. Most of staph aureus were susceptible to penicillins, amikacin and cefotaxime. Klebsiella was found to be resistant to penicillins, amikacin and cefotaxime. Conclusion: There is possible increasing incidence of gram positive septicemia in LONS and increasing emergence of resistance of kleibsella to the common antibiotics ampicillin, amikacin and cefotaxime.