Early introduction of water and complementary feeding and nutritional status of children in northern Senegal

Abstract Objective Malnutrition is responsible globally for 60% of deaths among children under 5 years and is often attributed to suboptimal feeding practices. In response, the World Health Organization recommends exclusive breast-feeding for the first 6 months of life. The objective of this study was to determine if an association exists between the early introduction of water and complementary foods (CFs) and the nutritional status of children in northern Senegal. Design/Setting/Subjects A cross-sectional study of 374 children in the Podor Health District between the ages of 6 and 23 months was conducted. Knowledge and behaviours of mothers regarding introduction of water and CFs were assessed via individual interviews. Results Water was introduced to about 85% of the children in the first 3 months of life and 62% were fed CFs before 6 months. Overall, 16% had clinically significant wasting (weight-for-length Z-score (WHZ) less than −2) and 20% had stunting (height-for-age Z-score (HAZ) less than −2). There was no significant association between wasting or stunting and introduction of water before 3 months (WHZ: odds ratio=0.99, 95% confidence interval 0.46-2.14, P=0.97; HAZ: 0.68, 0.34-1.36, P=0.3) or introduction of CFs before 6 months (WHZ: 0.81, 0.46-1.42, P=0.5; HAZ: 0.79, 0.46-1.35, P=0.4). A significant association was found between wasting and male sex, age, living in Guede community, drinking river/pond water and large family size, while stunting was associated with age and drinking tap water. Conclusion The results of the present study suggest that early introduction of water and CFs is frequent and is not associated with increased risk for malnutrition among children from this region of northern Senegal, but the possibility of reverse causality cannot be exclude

Percentage, Bacterial Etiology and Antibiotic Susceptibility of Acute Respiratory Infection and Pneumonia among Children in Rural Senegal

Acute respiratory infections (ARI) are still a major health problem in most developing countries. So far no study has evaluated the importance of childhood ARI in rural Senegal. We prospectively studied ARI, the percentage of pneumonia and related mortality, as well as the bacterial composition of nasopharyngeal flora using nasopharyngeal aspirates in 114 children, aged 2-59 months, presenting at Ndioum's pediatric ward. Excluded from the trial were those children that had had antimicrobial therapy in the previous 2 weeks. The Kirby-Bauer method was used to determine antibiotic resistance throughout the study. The percentage of ARI and pneumonia among the population tested was 24 per cent and 11 per cent respectively. Streptococcus pneumonia was often resistant to cotrimoxazole (31 per cent) but only 9 per cent were resistant to chloramphenicol and 14 per cent to penicillin. Haemophilus influenzae (HI) was uniformly sensitive to ampicillin, and only 4 per cent were resistant to chloramphenicol and 11 per cent to cotrimoxazole. We conclude that SP and HI resistance to cotrimoxazole is important and warrants larger clinical trials using chloramphenicol. Information campaigns and intense management of comorbidities are desirable in this type of population. Comorbidities (tuberculosis, malaria, HIV‐AIDS, severe malnutrition) are determinant variables in many ARI cases and carry a high negative prognosis valu

Etiology of community-acquired pneumonia in hospitalized children based on WHO clinical guidelines

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a major cause of death in developing countries and of morbidity in developed countries. The objective of the study was to define the causative agents among children hospitalized for CAP defined by WHO guidelines and to correlate etiology with clinical severity and surrogate markers. Investigations included an extensive etiological workup. A potential causative agent was detected in 86% of the 99 enrolled patients, with evidence of bacterial (53%), viral (67%), and mixed (33%) infections. Streptococcus pneumoniae was accounted for in 46% of CAP. Dehydration was the only clinical sign associated with bacterial pneumonia. CRP and PCT were significantly higher in bacterial infections. Increasing the number of diagnostic tests identifies potential causes of CAP in up to 86% of children, indicating a high prevalence of viruses and frequent co-infections. The high proportion of pneumococcal infections re-emphasizes the importance of pneumococcal immunizatio