Abstract
Globally, respiratory diseases cause 10 million deaths every year. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the burden of respiratory illness increased and led to significant morbidity and mortality in both high- and low-income countries. This study assessed the burden and trend of respiratory conditions among patients presenting to the emergency department of Muhimbili National Hospital in Tanzania and compared with national COVID-19 data to determine if this knowledge may be useful for the surveillance of disease outbreaks in settings of limited specific diagnostic testing. The study used routinely collected data from the electronic information system in the Emergency Medical Department (EMD) of Muhimbili National Hospital in Tanzania. All patients presenting to the EMD in a 2-year period, 2020 and 2021 with respiratory conditions were included. Descriptive statistics and graphical visualizations were used to describe the burden of respiratory conditions and the trends over time and to compare to national Tanzanian COVID-19 data during the same period. One in every four patients who presented to the EMD of the Muhimbili National Hospital had a respiratory condition– 1039 patients per month. Of the 24,942 patients, 52% were males, and the median age (IQR) was 34.7 (21.7, 53.7) years. The most common respiratory diagnoses were pneumonia (52%), upper respiratory tract infections (31%), asthma (4.8%) and suspected COVID-19 (2.5%). There were four peaks of respiratory conditions coinciding with the four waves in the national COVID-19 data. We conclude that the burden of respiratory conditions among patients presenting to the EMD of Muhimbili National Hospital is high. The trend shows four peaks of respiratory conditions in 2020–2021 seen to coincide with the four waves in the national COVID-19 data. Real-time hospital-based surveillance tools may be useful for early detection of respiratory disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies in settings with limited diagnostic testing.
Funder
African critical care registry network for pandemic surveillance, clinical management and research
Laerdal Foundation
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Reference28 articles.
1. Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality for 282 causes of death in 195 countries and territories, 1980–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017;GA Roth;Lancet,2018
2. The global burden of respiratory disease;T Ferkol;Ann Am Thorac Soc,2014
3. Under-report and underdiagnosis of chronic respiratory diseases in an African country;P Martins;Allergy Eur J Allergy Clin Immunol,2009
4. The epidemiology of noncommunicable respiratory disease in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa;R Ahmed;Malawi Med J,2017
5. Prevalence and determinants of Acute Lower Respiratory Infections among children under-five years in sub–Saharan Africa: Evidence from demographic and health surveys;AA Seidu;SSM—Popul Heal,2019
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献