A case report on management of severe childhood pneumonia in low resource settings

Abstract

Pneumonia is a major cause of child mortality among children under five years, worldwide. Pneumonia infection may be caused by bacteria, viruses, or fungi in single or in both lungs. According to recent criteria developed by World Health Organization (WHO) in September (2013), pneumonia can be classified into severe pneumonia, pneumonia and no pneumonia. Most of the deaths occur from severe pneumonia and management of severe childhood pneumonia requires early identification, prompt referral and the availability of intensive quality of care. This case study aimed to represent the actual scenario of severe childhood pneumonia case management at community clinic. Considering that circumstances, International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) developed an innovative day care management approach as safe, effective and less expensive alternative to hospital management of severe childhood pneumonia. A twenty-seven months old boy came to the Health & Family Welfare Centre (HFWC) with severe breathing difficulty, cough, history of fever. The management described below was continued daily until there was clinical improvement; no fever, no fast breathing, no lower chest wall indrawing, no danger signs, no rales on auscultation and no hypoxemia. Considering the WHO case management protocol for severe pneumonia, day care management approach on community clinic recommends that diagnosis of severe pneumonia should be based primarily on visible clinical parameters. On that basis, severe childhood pneumonia can be successfully managed at community clinics including for children with hypoxemia who is required prolong (4–6 hours) oxygen therapy.