Difference in Clinical Patterns between COVID-19 Affected Children and Adults.

Coronavirus has created a major global health problem since December 2019. People of all age groups were affected by this virus though children showed milder clinical characteristics and initially less number of children was affected by this virus. It is very important to know the difference in clinical patterns between COVID-19 affected children and adults. This cross-sectional prospective study was carried out in Kurmitola General Hospital, Dhaka from April to September 2020 to compare the clinical pattern and laboratory findings between COVID-19 positive children and adults. Total 150 COVID-19 positive patients were enrolled in this study, among them 100 patients were adults (>18 year) mean±SD age (49.9±14.33) and 50 patients were children (Day 1-18 year) mean±SD age (8.7±4.79). The adult group had 66 males and 34 females and the pediatric group had 27 males and 23 females. No significant sex difference was seen between the two groups (0.153). Most of the children were affected by family contact and they showed a mild type of illness but adult patients had contact from different sources. Fever and cough were the main symptoms of both groups but fever was more common in adults (81%) than children (36%), p-value (0.001). In children no severe or critical cases were found. But asymptomatic cases were 8%, mild cases (68%) and moderate cases (24%) in children. In adults no asymptomatic patients were found. Moderate cases were 72%, severe 14% and critical 5% (p value 0.001). Leucopenia, Lymphopenia and raised CRP and increased ferritin were found more in adults than children. Chest X-ray showed 42% of children had pneumonia and 83% adults had pneumonia. There was significant difference between the two groups (p value 0.0001). This study concludes that corona virus affects children like adults but their presentation is not so severe and children show mild clinical symptoms in comparison with adults.

Association between Child Undernutrition and Maternal Undernutrition: A Study in a Tertiary Care Hospital.

Undernutrition in children under five years remains a significant health problem in Bangladesh, despite substantial socio-economic progress and a decade of interventions aimed at improving it. Although Bangladesh has made rapid progress over the last decade in the field of health and nutrition, there has been very slow progress in improving the state of child nutrition. Studies aiming at determination of interrelationship between child undernutrition and maternal undernutrition are to be scientifically established if appropriate intervention policy is to be introduced. This study was undertaken to see whether this assumption has a statistically proven basis that maternal undernutrition influences child undernutrition. The objective of this cross sectional analytical study was to evaluate the association between child undernutrition and their maternal undernutrition in child-mother pair in a tertiary care hospital and was conducted from July 2017 to April 2018 in the department of General Paediatrics, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Dhaka, Bangladesh. The study subjects were 196 children between the ages of six months to five years who were admitted in BSMMU and their accompanying mothers. Children who had any known chronic diseases or clinically obvious syndrome were excluded. Before enrollment, parents of all the patients were informed about the study & its objectives. Anthropometric measurements of children and mothers were done by standard procedure. Demographic profile and relevant maternal information were collected by interviewing the mothers. Among the undernourished children, 17.3% were found underweight, 7.1% stunted, 16.3% wasted. Combined underweight & wasted were 34.7%, underweight & stunted 9.2%, stunted & wasted 5.1%, underweight, stunted and wasted 10.2%. Maternal undernutrition was more common (95.7%) in undernourished children group. Undernutrition was significantly higher in mothers of children with undernutrition (OR=40.75, p<0.001). Children having a better nutrition were born from mothers who were well nourished, educated, had good childcare knowledge and higher family income. This emphasized the need to provide the guideline for appropriate measure to be taken to reduce child undernutrition.