Infections of Children associated with malnutrition in Quetta,Pakistan

The study was conducted in pediatrics ward,therapeutic feeding center (tfc) of bolan medical complex (bmc)/ hospital quetta from december 2007 to march 2008. one hundred (100) children studied among them 80 children were malnourished infected and 20 were selected as well nourished but infected. the age group of children for the study was between 6 to 60 months. complete general physical and systemic examination of every child was performed. for anthropometric measures well come's criterion was followed to find out the type of malnutrition. laboratory investigations of fifty (50) children were carried out. the number of female malnourished children was higher than male malnourished children. the malnourished children belonged to poor class living in crowded and poor sanitation and 65% of the children were reported as un-immunized and 72% of the children belong to pushtoon ethnic group. the prevalence of malnutrition was higher in the 6 to 12 months age group. breast feeding (bf) was exclusively practiced in 29%,while bf along with formula milk was used in 49% of malnourished children. pneumonia was the major infectious disease caused by klebsiella pneumonia in both nourished and malnourished children,while the second major infectious disease was infective diarrhea caused by enterococci was the major organisms followed by escherichia coli. malnutrition was not considered as a medical problem by the people of this area and malnourished children were brought to hospital when they had some other disease. malnourished children were underweight,followed by marasmus and the prevalence of marasmus was higher than kwashiorkor. majority of the children including nourished were anemic and had low body mass index (bmi).