1. Quantifying the incidence of severe-febrile-illness hospital admissions in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Author
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Roddy P, Dalrymple U, Jensen TO, Dittrich S, Rao VB, Pfeffer DA, Twohig KA, Roberts T, Bernal O, and Guillen E
- Subjects
- Adolescent, Adult, Africa South of the Sahara epidemiology, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Child, Child, Preschool, Community-Acquired Infections complications, Community-Acquired Infections diagnosis, Community-Acquired Infections epidemiology, Female, Fever diagnosis, Fever etiology, Fever pathology, Hospitalization statistics & numerical data, Humans, Incidence, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Malaria complications, Malaria diagnosis, Malaria epidemiology, Male, Medical Overuse statistics & numerical data, Middle Aged, Prevalence, Severity of Illness Index, Young Adult, Fever epidemiology, Patient Admission statistics & numerical data
- Abstract
Severe-febrile-illness (SFI) is a common cause of morbidity and mortality across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The burden of SFI in SSA is currently unknown and its estimation is fraught with challenges. This is due to a lack of diagnostic capacity for SFI in SSA, and thus a dearth of baseline data on the underlying etiology of SFI cases and scant SFI-specific causative-agent prevalence data. To highlight the public health significance of SFI in SSA, we developed a Bayesian model to quantify the incidence of SFI hospital admissions in SSA. Our estimates indicate a mean population-weighted SFI-inpatient-admission incidence rate of 18.4 (6.8-31.1, 68% CrI) per 1000 people for the year 2014, across all ages within areas of SSA with stable Plasmodium falciparum transmission. We further estimated a total of 16,200,337 (5,993,249-27,321,779, 68% CrI) SFI hospital admissions. This analysis reveals the significant burden of SFI in hospitals in SSA, but also highlights the paucity of pathogen-specific prevalence and incidence data for SFI in SSA. Future improvements in pathogen-specific diagnostics for causative agents of SFI will increase the abundance of SFI-specific prevalence and incidence data, aid future estimations of SFI burden, and enable clinicians to identify SFI-specific pathogens, administer appropriate treatment and management, and facilitate appropriate antibiotic use., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
- Published
- 2019
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