Acute respiratory infections in children under five years of age during the time of bird flu epidemic

in Ba Vi district, Ha Tay province, Vietnam

Nguyen Thi Thang

Master thesis in Public Health

UmeaUniversity - Sweden, 2005

Acute respiratory infections (ARI) is o­ne of the main factors contributing to the burden ofillnesses and deaths in children in the world, especially in developing countries. In Vietnam, ARI is o­ne of the major causes of illnesses in children. More importantly, in the context of the bird flu epidemic in the whole country, most of the symptoms of ill cases by virus H5N1 are related to symptoms of respiratory infections.

Objectives: This study was conducted in order to describe the proportion of ARI infection in children under five years of age and investigate the influence of bird flu epidemic o­n this proportion. Besides, the research also considered people's choice of health care services when their children have the symptoms of ARI.

Methods: The design is a cohortretrospective research with household survey conducted through the demographic survey system ofBa Vi Epidemiological Field Laboratory in order to collect information about illness symptoms and health services use of children under five years of age during six months prior to the date of interview. In order to limit the recall biasand compare to the findings of another study conducted in the same location but not during the epidemic, information about health events and health services use of the children under five during o­ne month prior to the date of interview was used for analysis in this study.

Findings: 35% of the total of 3228 children under five being surveyed during the bird flu epidemic was reported to have 1-3 symptoms of ARI (cough, high temperature and difficulty in breathing), clearly higher (p<0,001) than the finding of the study in 2000 (28%). The proportion ofchildren with cough and high temperature (31%); with cough, high temperature and difficulty in breathing (4,1%) is higher than the corresponding proportion of 21% and 0,86% in the 2000 study (p<0,001). Children of poor families have the risk of getting cough and high temperature 1,36 times higher than children of well-off families. The proportion of chidren infected with ARI using private health services is the highest: 49%.

Conclusion: The study showed a statistically significant increase in the proportion of ARI infections as well as the level of seriousness during the time of bird flu epidemic in Ba Vi district, Ha Tay province. This finding suggests that bird flu may be o­ne factor affecting this increase.

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