Paediatrician Raises Concern over Childhood TB, Diabetes in Ogun

James Sowole

A Professor of Paediatrics at Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), Sagamu, Ogun State, Musili Fetuga, has expressed concern over childhood Tuberculosis (TB) in some parts of the state, which has led the the deaths of many affected children.

Prof Fetuga, who spoke with journalists, after delivering the 102nd Inaugural lecture of the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), specifically, gave the report of her findings during a given period.

She disclosed that 52 cases, were recorded at the OOUTH, Sagamu, during a period between 2004 and 2009 adding the the cases involved children of school age and who also belonged to the low socioeconomic wrung of the society.

Prof. Fetuga added that one third of the affected children had HIV as a co – infection, explaining that at the time of investigation, it was observed that TB cases in Sagamu was prominent in the lower socioeconomic class characterised by poor nutrition, poor housing, overcrowding, poor ventilation and poor access to quality health care.

Stating that though the said cases were recorded between 2004 and 2009, the don said the situation might have not changed for better today.

Identifying poor feeding, poor growth and weight loss as prominent features of childhood Tuberculosis, she suggested improved standard of living and routine HIV screening in Sagamu as useful control measures against TB infection among children.

She also noted that diabetes milletus is another health challenge being observed in children from poor socioeconomic backgrounds lamenting that due to poverty, they come for medical attention for the first time with the life – threatening stage of the disease.

She said, “Due to socioeconomic challenges, things are probably worst in some aspects. For instance, we see children with diabetes, we see them and they are not so many but we do see them in family that have diabetes.

“So, for some of them when they come in, they came in with Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA). This is a life – threatening complication of the disease, there is no insulin and where it exists, they cannot afford it.”

Earlier in her lecture titled, ‘That Our Children May Grow: The Potentials, Challenges and Privileges,’ Prof. Fetuga revealed that the pattern of childhood deaths in Sagamu as recorded in OOUTH between 1996 and 2005 as examined by her in 2007, showed that of the 10,451 paediatric admissions, 1,320 of them died, stressing that most deaths occurred within 48 hours of hospitalisation while of the patients that died, 57.3 per cent of them were neonates (aged less than 30 days from birth).

To arrest the situation, she recommended among other things, calls on the state and federal governments to address various socioeconomic challenges confronting families and the nation, provision of affordable hormone replacement and insulin therapies for children and routine newborn screening for hypothyroidism, Tuberculosis, HIV and diabetes.