Infection and kwashiorkor in Sudanese children

Abstract

Two groups of Sudanese children, 55 with nutritional marasmus (NM) and 55 with kwashiorkor (K) were studied to differentiate between the etiology of NM and K. Subjects were between 6 and 36 months of age, admitted to the Children's Emergency Hospital in Khartoum. This paper presents the results of the association between K and infections during the weaning period. Data on morbidity were obtained by a physician consulting health records and asking the mothers in the hospital to recall the occurrence of measles, and the frequency of gastroenteritis, malaria, pneumonia, whooping cough, tuberculosis and other respiratory illnesses, three months prior to hospitalization. A clinical examination and appetite estimation were also performed. Biochemical tests, included hematology, serum proteins and urea, were performed on all subjects. The findings provide strong evidence that K is more associated with infections during the weaning period than is NM. The odds ratios for measles (2.3), frequency of pneumonia (2.1)...