Respiratory infections

Acute gastroenteritis [29%] and respiratory infections [11%] were responsible for forty percent of children ward admissions and eighty percent of total ward deaths during 1980. Respiratory infections ranked equal to gastroenteritis in a poor locality survey both entities being responsible for causing 79% of the total illness in children in the community. Younger children developed serious lower respiratory infections more commonly than older children the winter peaks involving younger children and summer peaks affecting older children are recorded. Gram negative bacilli are frequently isolated [33%] from upper respiratory secretions in hospitalized children