1. Medical Consultations After Typhoon Haiyan in a Field Hospital in the Philippines.
- Author
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Gil Cuesta J, van Loenhout JAF, de Lara Banquesio ML, Mustaffa M, and Guha-Sapir D
- Subjects
- Adolescent, Adult, Child, Child, Preschool, Civil Defense methods, Female, Humans, Infant, Male, Middle Aged, Mobile Health Units organization & administration, Philippines epidemiology, Population Surveillance methods, Referral and Consultation statistics & numerical data, Cyclonic Storms statistics & numerical data, Mobile Health Units statistics & numerical data, Referral and Consultation trends
- Abstract
Introduction and Objectives: Typhoon Haiyan partially destroyed the Ormoc District Hospital in the Philippines. A field hospital was established to replace its outpatient department for 5 weeks. We investigated the reasons for medical consultation in the field hospital., Methods: We described the consultations by sex, age, week, and diagnosis according to the Surveillance in Post-Extreme Emergencies and Disasters system. We compared the number and proportion of upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) with a control season in 2014., Results: We included 6785 consultations, 55.9% from women. The majority of consultations were communicable diseases (88.2%) followed by noncommunicable (7.1%) and injuries (5.6%). Males suffered more often from injuries than women (66.0% vs 34.0%). Consultations due to injuries decreased from 10.0% in the first to 2.9% in the last week. The most frequent diagnosis over the study period was acute respiratory infections (ARIs) (73.1%), of which 83.0% were children. The number of daily URTIs was higher than in a similar 2014 period., Conclusions: ARI was the most prevalent diagnosis. We recommend ARI treatments being fully accessible after such a disaster. During the first week, injury prevention should focus on adult men. Studies after natural disasters should include control periods to better understand disease distribution, ultimately improving the prioritization in disasters.
- Published
- 2020
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