Health Itinerary of Young Children With Suspected Bloodstream Infection in Kisantu General Referral Hospital, DR Congo

Summary

Bloodstream infections are frequent in children admitted to the hospital for severe febrile illness in sub-Saharan Africa.Ongoing blood culture surveillance at Kisantu Hospital showed non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) as the first cause of bloodstream infections in children. Bloodstream infections have a high case fatality (15 - 20%). Outcome of bloodstream infections is dependent on timely diagnosis and treatment. However, observations at Kisantu Hospital showed that many children arrive late and die early after admission.

By interviewing caregivers of severely ill children admitted to Kisantu Hospital, the investigators aim to study their health itinerary, i.e. the sequence of all actions of health care seeking and care provision between the onset of febrile illness and the admission at the hospital. The investigators aim to assess the health itinerary according to the "three delays" model. The three delays model studies delays and practices at the level of health care seeking, of transport and of start of antibiotic treatment.10 Visits to referring health centers will provide complementary information about diagnosis, treatment and referral practices. In hospital follow-up will allow to assess the outcome according to the duration of health itinerary. The results of routine laboratory tests upon hospital admission will allow to stratify the health itinerary according to fever etiology.

The results of this study will allow to understand the duration of the health itinerary, its possible association with case-fatality, and factors explaining for delays at every level. This information is expected to orient local health policy makers towards interventions shortening the duration of the health itinerary and in that case improve and monitor the referral system. In addition, the study results are expected to orient towards further research to understand health seeking behavior (i.e. focus-group discussions and community-based studies).

Conditions

• Bloodstream Infection
• Health Care Utilization
• Malaria,Falciparum
• Salmonella Infection Non-Typhoid
• Febrile Illness

Sponsors & Collaborators

• KU Leuven

  collaborator OTHER

• Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale. Kinshasa, République Démocratique du Congo

  collaborator OTHER

• Fund for Scientific Research, Flanders, Belgium

  collaborator OTHER

• Hôpital Saint-Luc, Kisantu, République Démocratique du Congo

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Bieke Tack · Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp

Eligibility

Min Age

28 Days

Max Age

5 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-02-01

Primary Completion

2022-07-31

Completion

2022-07-31

Countries

• Democratic Republic of the Congo

Study Locations