ArticlePloS one2022
Clinical presentations, diagnostics, treatments and treatment costs of children and adults with febrile illness in a tertiary referral hospital in south-eastern Guinea: A retrospective longitudinal cohort study.
Article in PloS one, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence of dengue in febrile patients in Peru: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- Epidemiology and Outcomes of Pediatric Fever in a Rural District of Southern Mozambique: 17 Years of Morbidity Surveillance.Open forum infectious diseases · 2025Article
- From fever to action: diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of acute undifferentiated febrile illnesses.Pathogens and disease · 2024Review
- Ethnobotanical study of traditional medicinal plants used by the local people in Habru District, North Wollo Zone, Ethiopia.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundFebrile illness is frequent among patients in the tropics. It is caused by a wide variety of common diseases such as malaria or gastrointestinal infections but also by less common but highly contagious pathogens with epidemic potential. This study describes the clinical features of adult and paediatric patients with febrile illness in in the largest tertiary referral hospital in south-eastern Guinea, a region at high risk for viral haemorrhagic fever outbreaks. The study further compares their diagnostic characteristics, treatments and outcomes with non-febrile patients in order to contribute to the local epidemiology of febrile illness.
methodsWe used retrospective data collection to record demographic and clinical data of all incoming patients during a study period of three months. For the follow-up study of inpatients, we retrospectively reviewed patient charts for diagnostic characteristics, diagnoses and outcomes.
resultsOf the 4317 incoming patients during the study period, 9.5% had a febrile illness. The most used diagnostic measures to identify causative agents in febrile patients were point-of-care tests and most treatments relied on antibiotics. Most common discharge diagnoses for febrile inpatients were malaria (9.6% adults, 56.7% children), salmonella gastroenteritis/typhoid (10.6% adults, 7.8% children) and respiratory infection/pneumonia (5.3% adults, 18.7% children). Inpatient mortality for children was significantly higher in febrile than non-febrile children (18.5% vs. 5.1%, p<0.001) and considerably higher in febrile than non-febrile adults (29.8% vs. 25.0%, p = 0.404).
conclusionsMalaria, respiratory infection and gastroenteritis are considered the main causes for febrile illness. The wide reliance on rapid diagnostic tests to diagnose febrile patients not only risks to over- or under-diagnose certain diseases but also leaves the possibility of highly infectious diseases in febrile patients unexplored. Furthermore, the heavy reliance on antibiotics risks to cause antimicrobial resistance. High mortality rates in febrile patients, especially children, should be of concern to public health authorities.
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