Antibiotics are commonly prescribed drugs in paediatrics. However, the threat of antibiotic resistance among children is a cause for concern. A study of the administration patterns of antibiotics prior to admission was carried out on children admitted to a paediatric ward of Teaching Hospital, Jaffna from June to August 2008, using a pre-tested structured questionnaire. Descriptive and basic statistical tests were used to analyse the data. The total number of admissions to the ward was 420 out of which 227 (54%) had been given antibiotics prior to admission. Of this, 53 (23%) were infants. Of the entire cohort, oral antibiotics were given to 214 (94%) and 47 (22%) of them were given two or more antibiotics. Amoxicillin (48%), erythromycin (20%) and cephalexin (16%) were the antibiotics commonly prescribed. Sixty three percent were prescribed antibiotics by general practitioners and 16% were given antibiotics without consulting a doctor. Only 53 (23%) of the parents knew the name and the sideeffects of the antibiotics used on the children. Hospital stay was significantly more for children given prior antibiotics than for those who did not have prior antibiotics (14% against 8% p<0.05). Other medications had been administered to 298 (71%). In order to reduce the risk of antibiotic resistance of microbes, an antibiotic policy should be carefully instituted and implemented.
Introduction: Diarrhoeal diseases are an important public health problem in Sri Lanka.
Objectives:To determine the organisms that caused diarrhoea, the clinical profile, sociodemographic details including living conditions, microbiological analysis and response to treatment.
Method:A retrospective study was done from October 2014 to January 2015. Hospital records were used to analyse living conditions, water supply and general wellbeing of the children in addition to clinical and microbiological data.Results: A total of 346 (4% of total admissions) cases were admitted with diarrhoeal illness to the paediatric wards during the study period. One hundred and twenty one (35%) children had blood and mucous diarrhoea of whom Shigella sp. was isolated from the stools of 15. The mean age of children with proven shigellosis was 2.3±1.1years. Seven of the patients with proven shigellosis had poor growth indicated by the low weight for height i.e. between the -2SD and -3SD. Shigella flexneri II was identified in 14 patients and Shigella sonnei from one patient. Eight (53%) patients with S. flexneri were treated with IV gentamicin to which there was a clinical response. Majority (12) of the households did not have a proper water supply and 10 families had to travel >5 km to get clean drinking water facilities. All 15 cases demonstrated poor hygienic practices.Conclusions: Blood and mucus diarrhoea accounted for 121 of 346 admissions for diarrhoea during a 4 month period in Jaffna Hospital. A positive aetiological diagnosis was made in only 15 patients, with S. flexneri isolated from 14 and S. sonnei from one patient.
This an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Sacral agenesis is a rare congenital malformation of partial or complete absence of sacral or lower lumber region. We report 6 month old child with sacral agenesis.
Case historySix month old female child presented with high spike fever found to have high C -reactive protein treated for acute pyelonephritis which needed IV antibiotics.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.