Mashal Khan, Khalid Mahmood A Khan, Ashfaque Ahmed.
Audit of measles cases in a tertiary care hospital.
Pak Paed J Jan ;37(3):143-8.

Objectives: To evaluate the immunization status, complications and clinical outcome in children admitted with measles. Place and duration: National Institute of Child Health Karachi from 1stJanuary 2012 to 31thDecember 2012. Study Design: Case series Material and method: Patients with clinical diagnosis of measles fulfilling the WHO case definition i.e. fever, rash and one of the three symptoms: cough, coryza, conjunctivitis, with its complications were hospitalized and enrolled in the study. Detailed history and physical examination of patients, demographic data, immunization status, complications and immediate outcome were assessed and recorded. Data was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) Version 10. P value of < 0.05 was taken as significant. Results: Four hundred ninety (490) patients with measles and its complications were studied. There were 64.7% males and 35.3% females with a male to female ratio of 1.8 to 1. The age of patients ranged from 6 months to 16 years with a mean age ± SD of 4.41 ± 3.16 years. Unvaccinated patients against measles were 80.2%. Malnutrition was seen in 76.3%, out of which 41.8% had severe malnutrition. Pneumonia (52.2%) and diarrhea with dehydration (48.1%) were the common complications of measles. Encephalitis (46.1%) and myocarditis (36.36%) were the leading causes of mortality followed by pneumonia (4.69%) and diarrhea (4.03 %). The overall mortality was 9.5%. Conclusion: Majority of the patients (80.2%) were unvaccinated against measles which is alarmingly high and unfortunate. Pneumonia and diarrhea were the common complications in this study. The overall mortality was 9.5% with encephalitis and myocarditis having the highest mortality.

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