Infections diagnosed in children and young people screened for malaria in UK emergency departments: a retrospective multi-centre study

Figures & data

Table 1. The hospitals which gathered the study data.

Sheffield Children’s Hospital	England
John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford	England
Bristol Royal Hospital for Children	England
Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow	Scotland
Watford General Hospital	England
Royal Berkshire Hospital	England
University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff	Wales
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London	England
Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, Edinburgh	Scotland
Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge	England
Royal Free Hospital, London	England
North Middlesex Hospital, London	England
Northwick Park Hospital, London	England
Whittington Hospital, London	England
Birmingham Children’s Hospital	England

Figure 1. The proportion of children tested for malaria in UK EDs by area of travel.

Table 2. Discharge diagnoses in 1414 children who underwent screening for malaria in the ED.

Diagnosis grouping	%	Diagnosis	Frequency
No discharge diagnosis	29.0	No diagnosis	282
		Fever	96
		PUO	30
Mainly tropical infections	21.0	Gastro-enteritis	178
		Malaria	60
		Typhoid	21
		Hepatitis	15
		Dysentery	12
		Dengue	4
		Rickettsial infection	3
		Leishmaniasis	1
		TB	3
		HIV	1
Infections found in both tropical and non-tropical settings	50.0	Viral infection	209
		Viral URTI	156
		LRTI	90
		Other (non-infectious)	86
		Tonsillitis	85
		Otitis media	24
		UTI	23
		Cellulitis	15
		Lymphadenitis	8
		Sepsis	8
		Meningitis	4

HIV: human immunodeficiency virus; LRTI: lower respiratory tract infection; PUO: pyrexia of unknown origin; URTI: upper respiratory tract infection; UTI: urinary tract infection.

Table 3. Odds ratios of geographical region associated with a diagnosis of malaria and gastro-enteritis based on a logistic regression model (age- and sex-adjusted) with 95% confidence intervals.

	Malaria	Typhoid	Hepatitis	Gastro-enteritis
Sub-Saharan Africa vs South Asia	7.44 (3.78–16.41)	0.23 (0.05–0.71)	1.78 (0.56–6.07)	0.62 (0.42–0.89)
Age 5+ y vs 1–4 y	3.26 (1.76–6.45)	1.49 (0.60–3.90)	2.02 (0.63–7.62)	0.76 (0.53–1.09)
Age <1 y vs 1–4 y	1.18 (0.18–4.50)	–	–	0.73 (0.31–1.50)
Male vs female	0.70 (0.40–1.21)	1.32 (0.53–3.60)	0.25 (0.06–0.85)	1.28 (0.90–1.85)

No cases of typhoid/hepatitis were diagnosed in the <1 year age group.