ABSTRACT
Background: Acute respiratory infections (ARI) comprising of a group of respiratory diseases of varying etiology and severity is being increasingly recognized as a major public health problem particularly amongst children below five years of age. In all countries ARI is a leading cause of hospitalization and death. Therefore ARIs represent a large challenge in field of communicable diseases. The study was conducted with the objective to assess the socio-demographic, epidemiological and clinical profile of ARI cases.Methods: A descriptive cross sectional, hospital based study was conducted at Government Medical College and Hospital. All children admitted with ARI in the paediatric ward during the study period of one calendar year.Results: Maximum (53.13%) cases of ARI were from the age group <1 year. Males (60.80%) outnumbered the females (M:F ratio was 1.5:1). Month wise and season wise distribution of ARI cases showed that, most of the cases were admitted in the month of December (13.35%), followed by January (12.78%) and November (10.80%).Conclusions: Prevalence of ARI cases as well as severity of the disease was more in participants less than 1 year of age.
ABSTRACT
A cross-sectional study was conducted to estimate and to compare immunization coverage and to understand reasons of partial/non-immunization among children of seasonal migrant sugarcane harvesting laborers and nonmigrating children. Caretakers of a total of 420 children between 12 and 23 months age were interviewed in 30 clusters consisting 14 children from each cluster (seven from each group) by expanded program on immunization cluster survey method. Statistical analysis was performed with proportions, their 95% confidence intervals (CI), Chi-square test, and binary logistic regression. Full immunization coverage rate was 89.5% (95% CI: 86.5-92.5) for children in nonmigrating group and 70.5% (95% CI: 66.0-74.9) for migrant group. Reasons cited for unimmunized/partially immunized were, place or time of vaccination not known, unavailability of immunization services at site, inconvenient time of sessions, unaware of need for vaccination etc. Thus full immunization coverage rate was significantly lower among children of seasonal migrant sugarcane harvesting laborers.
ABSTRACT
India was certified polio free on 27 March 2014. Supplementary immunization activities, in the form of national immunization days, is one of the core strategies for eradication, where oral polio vaccine is administered to children aged under 5 years throughout the country. Oral polio vaccine is heat sensitive and requires maintenance of a stringent cold chain. Therefore, vaccine carriers with ice packs are used in the Pulse Polio Immunization (PPI) programme. This study assessed whether the cold chain is maintained during National Immunization Day in Beed district. A cross-sectional study was conducted at six randomly selected booths, one each from six primary health centres in Georai block of Beed district in Maharashtra. Electronic data loggers, configured to measure half-hourly temperatures, were kept in vaccine carriers throughout the day of PPI. The vaccine carrier temperature was below 8 °C at all six booths; minimum temperature recorded was –9.5 °C, while the maximum was 4.5 °C. The vaccine vial monitor did not reach discard point in any booth. A vaccine carrier with four ice packs very effectively maintains the cold chain required for oral polio vaccine.