Journal of Clinical & Experimental Pathology
Open Access

Special Issue Article

Clinical Malaria and Nutritional Status in Children Admitted in Lwiro Hospital, Democratic Republic of Congo

¹Département de biostatistique, Ecole de Santé Publique, Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgique)

²Department of Parasitology, Institute Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium

³Département d’épidémiologie et médecine préventive, Ecole de santé Publique, Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgique).

⁴Unité de santé internationale, Département des Sciences de la Santé Publique, Université de Liège (Belgique)

⁵Centre Scientifique et Médical de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles pour ses Activités de Coopération (CEMUBAC)

⁶Département de nutrition, Centre de Recherche en Sciences Naturelles / Lwiro (République Démocratique du Congo)

*Corresponding Author:

Mitangala Ndeba Prudence
département de biostatistique ESP/ULB, CP 598
Route de Lennik 808, 1070 Bruxelles, Belgique
Tel: +243 998 088 072
E-mail: prudendeb@yahoo.fr

Received Date: December 13, 2011; Accepted Date: April 20, 2012; Published Date: April 24, 2012

Citation: Prudence MN, D’Alessandro U, Donnen P, Hennart P, Porignon D, et al. (2012) Clinical Malaria and Nutritional Status in Children Admitted in Lwiro Hospital, Democratic Republic of Congo. J Clin Exp Pathol S3:004. doi: 10.4172/2161-0681.S3-004

Copyright: © 2012 Prudence MN, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract
Background: The relationship between malaria and nutritional status is still unclear and difficult to establish.
Methods: For this purpose, information on 1 994 children admitted between January 2003 and November 2006
in Lwiro paediatric hospital, located in the Kivu region in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC), was
analyzed. The relationship between indicators of Protein Energy Malnutrition (PEM) on admission and the risk of
clinical malaria during hospitalization was determined using Poisson regression.
Results: The clinical malaria incidence during hospitalization was 7.65/1 000 child-days (228/29 803) and was
significantly higher in children with the lowest nutritional indexes, requiring therapeutic feeding. Multivariate analysis
showed that malaria incidence was significantly higher in children with the middle upper arm circumference < 115
mm (IRR: 1.75; 95% CI: 1.16 – 2.38) and with nutritional oedemas (IRR 1.66; 95% CI: 1.16 – 2.38).
Conclusion: Children hospitalized with severe PEM and undergoing therapeutic refeeding were at a higher risk
of clinical malaria and should be specifically protected against such a risk.

Keywords