Prevalence and Causes of Anemia in Six to Sixty Months Old Children: A Cross-Sectional Study at Kathmandu Medical College and Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Introduction:Anemia is one of the most common

Point-of-Care Testing for Anaemia in Children Using Portable Haematocrit Meter: A Pilot Study from Southwest Nigeria and Implications for Developing Countries

“…It also uses three small 1.5 Volt alkaline batteries. This makes it and others with similar technology suitable for use in resource-poor settings where anaemia is a major comorbid condition and electricity supply is unreliable and inadequate (2)(3)7).…”

“…It is estimated that about 300 million children have anaemia worldwide and most of them are in the developing countries. The sub-Saharan Africa has the highest proportions of those affected (1)(2)(3). This has been attributed to the high prevalence of malaria, dietary inadequacies, helminthiasis, bacterial infections, sickle cell diseases, Human Immunodeficient Virus (HIV) infection and increasing number of non-communicable diseases in these countries (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6).…”

“…In addition, chronic anaemia negatively impacts a child`s cognition, growth and development, school performance, ability to fight infection and ability to live a productive adult life (1)(2)(3).…”

“…Anaemia is assessed either by measuring the haematocrit otherwise known as the Packed Cell Volume (PCV) or by measuring the haemoglobin (Hb) concentration of an individual (2)(3)7). Clinical and epidemiological studies use either of the two measurements to detect anaemia, and a three-fold conversion is commonly used to equate the two measures as follows : (haematocrit = haemoglobin concentration x 3) (7).…”

Endoscopic Profile of Children with Colorectal Polyps Attending a Tertiary Centre

“…Two of them required blood transfusionbecause their haemoglobin<8.0 gm/ dl before procto-sigmoidoscopic removal of polyps.The incidence of anaemia in our group is due to prolonged periods of rectal bleeding before they were brought for medical advice at our centre, as all (100%) of children had bleeding per rectum with mean duration of 13 months. The delays in early referral resulted from public ignorance about the condition, frequency of dysentery, coexisting nutritional anaemia that is prevalent in our country 17 and a lack of appreciation by family doctors about rectal polyps being one of the common causes of painless rectal bleeding. It is generally accepted that juvenile rectal polyps are usually solitary 14,18,19 but recent reports suggest that multiple polyps do occur in 20-35% of the paediatric population 6,20,21 .…”