The mean percentage of income spent on care was significant and amounted to catastrophic health expenditure for a third of the families. Government input in strengthening the existing cardiac centres, establish new ones and subsidising the cost of surgery to meet the needs for open heart surgery for children with CHDs is recommended.
Background: Pneumonia is a common cause of childhood morbidity and mortality globally. Some congenital heart disease (CHD) may predispose their sufferer to bronchopneumonia. Objective: To evaluate the contribution of CHD to pneumonia in children seen in a tertiary hospital. Methods: Over a year, consecutive children diagnosed radiologically with pneumonia were evaluated echocardiographically for CHD. Certain characteristics in children with pneumonia and CHD were compared to those without CHD. Results: There were 121 children with pneumonia of which 61(50.40%) were males and their mean age was 10.2 ± 10.93 months. The prevalence of CHD was 14(11.57%), the commonest CHD was ventricular septal defect (VSD) in 7(50.00%). Most of the CHD with septal defect had moderate to large defects. Children with CHD were 3 and 256 times more likely to have heart failure and murmur respectively compared to those without CHD, p = 0.084 and <0.0001. Children with CHD stayed longer in the hospital 11.50 ± 7.03 days than those without CHD 7.38 ± 5.34 days, p = 0.012.
Conclusion:The children with CHD were more likely to have heart failure and murmur compared to those without CHD. Prevalence of CHD in children with pneumonia in this study is high, evaluation of children with pneumonia for CHD is therefore recommended.
INTRODUCTION: Diphtheria had been a major of cause of childhood mortality until the advent of an effective vaccine. Even in Nigeria with low to moderate coverage with the third dose of DPT the number of reported cases of diphtheria had been reducing. However, in a recent report we noted an increase in the incidence of diphtheria. The mainstay of management of diphtheria is the Diphtheria antitoxin. Diphtheria antitoxin is not available in Nigeria. We present the mortalities from diphtheria to highlight the need to stock the diphtheria antitoxin. METHODOLOGY: A review of the case notes of patients managed for diphtheria between August 2008 and 2010 was done and relevant data extracted. RESULTS: Nine cases of diphtheria were seen and three mortalities were recorded giving a mortality rate of 33.3%. One of the deaths was from myocardial involvement and acute renal failure while another was from possible septicaemia. The third mortality occurred at home after discharge from hospital DISCUSSION: Most of the symptoms of diphtheria are due to the effects of the diphtheria exotoxin. The non availability of the antitoxin for the management of these children contributed to their mortality. CONCLUSION: As long as diphtheria remains uneradicated the need for the antitoxin is imperative.
Prolonged QTc was more prevalent in children with severe malaria anemia compared to those without anemia, suggesting that children with severe malaria anemia were more prone to arrhythmias. The median cTnT value in the subjects was not significantly lower than that in controls, suggesting that children with severe malaria anemia are not prone to myocardial injury any more than those with uncomplicated malaria without anemia.
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.