Typhoid Fever in Young Children

Abstract

One hundred and fifty cases of typhoid in infants and young children are reported. In children over 5 years of age the features resembled those in adults, but in those under this age they were often nonspecific including fever, convulsions, diarrhoea, and vomiting. Attention is drawn to the importance of a blood culture in anaemic afebrile children who develop rigors and high fever after blood transfusions.

The epidemiology of typhoid fever in the Dong Thap Province, Mekong Delta region of Vietnam.

“…Several hospital-based studies, a hospital outpatient-based prospective study of febrile patients, and a disease surveillance in Chicago showed that about one-quarter to one-third of pediatric typhoid fever cases were under 5 years old, and 6 to 21% were under 2 years of age (Table 2). [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] In this study, no culture-positive typhoid fever was detected in persons Ͻ 2 years of age. The apparent absence of culture-positive typhoid fever in children less than 2 years of age may be due to the difficulty and reluctance of doctors to draw five mL blood from a small child.…”

“…Following acute infections, patients may continue to excrete S. typhi for several weeks or for years as a chronic carrier. 2 Nearly half of the culture-positive typhoid fever in this study oc- Galloway and others 14 Scragg and others 15 Mulligan 16 Johnson and others 17 Thisyakorn and others 18 Chow and others 19 Ellis and others 20 Lepage and others 22 Verma and others 21 Velema and others 24 Mirsa and others 23 This study curred in March and April, the two months at the end of the dry season. The water level progressively gets lower during the dry season, especially in smaller waterways.…”

Vertical transmission of Salmonella paratyphi A

“…The other common complications include relapse, perforation and hemorrhage from bowel ulcerations especially in neonates and young children. 2,3 Hemorrhage and perforation was an eventuality observed in this case. However, such complications are extremely rare in paratyphoid fever.…”

“…2,8 Patients may present with varying severity, Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi causing more severe illness than Salmonella enterica serotype ParatyphiA. Survival depends on high index of suspicion and appropriate empiric therapy.…”

“…Classical features of enteric fever such as leucopaenia, hepato-splenomegaly, rose spots, abdominal distension and even severe fever may not be present. 2,6,8,9 Only some of the patients may present with features of severe septicemia. 10 Anemia may be a pronounced feature 2 in many, which was present in our case as well.…”