TITLE:
Study of Tuberculosis in Children Aged 1 Month to 15 Years in the Pediatric Ward of the Hospital of Mali 2015-2021
AUTHORS:
Bourama Kané, Korotoumou Wéllé Diallo, Aboubacar Sangaré, Youssouf Dembélé, Garan Dabo, Mamadou Traoré, Mohamed Maba Traoré, Mamadou Berthé, Mariam Maiga
KEYWORDS:
Tuberculosis, Children, Mali Hospital
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Pediatrics,
Vol.12 No.2,
May
23,
2022
ABSTRACT: Introduction: In 2020, an estimated 9.9 million people are living
with tuberculosis worldwide, including 1.1 million children. Tuberculosis is
the 2nd leading cause of death from infectious disease after
COVID-19 and the 13th leading cause of death worldwide. Objective: To collect cases of tuberculosis in children aged 1 month to 15 years in order
to study the epidemio-clinical aspects in the pediatric department of the Mali
Hospital during the period 2015-2021. Materials and Methods: This was a
descriptive, retrospective study from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2020,
and a prospective study from January 1 to December 31, 2021, among children
aged 1 month to 15 years admitted for suspected tuberculosis in the pediatric
ward of the Mali Hospital. Results: From January 2015 to December 2021,
we collected 69 cases of tuberculosis among 9438 hospitalized children, i.e. a frequency of 0.73%. The average
age was 6.16 years with extremes of 3 months and 15 years. The sex ratio was
1.1% in favor of boys. The majority of children were vaccinated against
tuberculosis (88.4%). The most frequent symptoms were fever (76.8%) and weight
loss (73.9%). The pulmonary form was the most frequent (54.9%). Bacteriological
confirmation was done in 43.5% of our children. It was Mycobacterium
tuberculosis in all confirmed cases. More than half of our children (65.2%)
were treated with first-line anti-tuberculosis drugs for 6 months. We observed
a cure in 42.0% of our patients and a case fatality rate of 39.1%. Conclusion: Tuberculosis in children is frequent in Mali Hospital despite good BCG
vaccination coverage. Its mortality remains high and is maintained by
malnutrition, HIV, and the emergence of resistant strains of bacilli.