ArticleEClinicalMedicine2023
Antibiotic prescription from qualified sources for children with fever/cough: cross-sectional study from 59 low- and middle-income countries.
Article in EClinicalMedicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- National and regional challenges of antibiotic prescribing patterns in pediatric populations across Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2026Pooled it
- Antibiotic use for common illnesses in children living with disability: a multi-country study across 42 low- and middle-income countries.EClinicalMedicine · 2025Article
- Socio-Economic Disparities in Pediatric Viral Gastroenteritis: A Comparative Study of Clinical Outcomes and Management in Hospitalized Children with Rotavirus, Adenovirus, and Norovirus Infections.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The role of breastfeeding, antibiotics and antimalarial medicinal exposure in paediatric depression amongst children aged under 5: a population-based study.BMC pediatrics · 2025Article
- Article
- Antibiotic prescription sources and use among under-5 children with fever/cough in sub-Saharan Africa.International health · 2025Article
- Antibiotic use by clinical presentation across all healthcare providers in rural Burkina Faso: a healthcare visit exit survey.The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy · 2024Article
- Article
- Article
- A Narrative Review of Recent Antibiotic Prescribing Practices in Ambulatory Care in Tanzania: Findings and Implications.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2023Review
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Children in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) receive a staggering number of antibiotic prescriptions, many of which are inappropriate. We aimed to explore the proportion of antibiotic prescriptions from qualified sources of children under five who had a fever/cough in the two weeks prior to the survey in LMICs. Methods: We used data from cross-sectional studies of the latest Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) datasets (n = 43,166) in 59 LMICs covering Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa-West Asia-Europe, Central Asia, South & Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Latin America & the Caribbean regions. The study was conducted from March 2, 2020 to October 15, 2022. We only included the latest available surveys by country, and children under five who had taken antibiotics for fever/cough were included in the study. Finally, the outcome variable was classified into two distinct categories: those who had taken antibiotics from qualified sources and those who did not. Findings: About three in four children (74.0%) received antibiotics from qualified sources. Tanzania (22.4%) and Malawi (99.9%) had the lowest and highest percentages of antibiotic prescriptions by qualified sources, respectively. Oceania had the highest percentage of qualified antibiotic prescriptions with 88.9% and Central Asia had the lowest percentage with 56.3%. Interpretation: As unqualified sources of antibiotics for fever/cough in children under five were alarmingly high in some of the LMICs, the study emphasises the importance of nationwide efforts to regulate antibiotics prescriptions. Funding: None.
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