Acute Uncomplicated Febrile Illness in Children Aged 2-59 months in Zanzibar – Aetiologies, Antibiotic Treatment and Outcome

Abstract

This is the first study on uncomplicated febrile illness in African children that both applied a comprehensive laboratory panel and a healthy control group. A majority of patients had viral respiratory tract infection. Pathogens were frequently detected by qPCR also in asymptomatic children, demonstrating the importance of incorporating controls in fever aetiology studies. The precision of IMCI for identifying infections requiring antibiotics was low.