Observations of Pediatric Disease Prevalence from Pacific Partnership 2015.

Abstract

Pacific Partnership is an ongoing yearly humanitarian assistance mission to Pacific Rim countries. Although many case reports and surgical successes have been documented, few data have been published specifically about the primary care mission. This article analyzes outpatient pediatric data collected during Pacific Partnership 2015. Eleven different providers documented care delivered to children from birth through age 18 yr, inclusive. Personally de-identified data were entered into spreadsheets, sorted according to country visited, and analyzed with IBM SPSS software looking for disease frequency. One thousand eighty-seven pediatric patients were seen across Fiji, Papua New Guinea (PNG), and the Philippines (PI). Asthma was the first, second, and third most prevalent diagnosis in PNG, Fiji, and PI, with a relative proportion of the total patients seen at 5.4%, 7.2%, and 5%, respectively. In PI, 123 cases of upper respiratory infection were seen, more than four times the next most common diagnosis of normal exam. Thirty-six patients with scabies were seen in Fiji (number 1), with abdominal pain at number 3 (26 cases, 6.5%). Surprisingly, helminths were rarely seen, comprising the sixteenth and fourteenth most common diagnoses in Fiji and PI and only two cases in PNG. Future Pacific Partnership missions can plan medication stock, personnel assignment, equipment needs, and educational literature based on these data.