• Wendy P O'Meara, Joshua A Mott, Jeremiah Laktabai, Kabura Wamburu, Barry Fields, Janice Armstrong, Steve M Taylor, Charles MacIntyre, Reeshi Sen, Diana Menya, William Pan, Bradly P Nicholson, Christopher W Woods, and Thomas L Holland.
• Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina; Duke Global Health Institute, Durham, North Carolina; Moi University School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Eldoret, Kenya; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nairobi, Kenya; Moi University School of Medicine, College of Health Sciences, Eldoret, Kenya; Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina wpo@duke.edu.
• Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 2015 May 1; 92 (5): 1030-7.

AbstractIn Kenya, more than 10 million episodes of acute febrile illness are treated annually among children under 5 years. Most are clinically managed as malaria without parasitological confirmation. There is an unmet need to describe pathogen-specific etiologies of fever. We enrolled 370 febrile children and 184 healthy controls. We report demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with Plasmodium falciparum, group A streptococcal (GAS) pharyngitis, and respiratory viruses (influenza A and B, respiratory syncytial virus [RSV], parainfluenza [PIV] types 1-3, adenovirus, human metapneumovirus [hMPV]), as well as those with undifferentiated fever. Of febrile children, 79.7% were treated for malaria. However, P. falciparum was detected infrequently in both cases and controls (14/268 [5.2%] versus 3/133 [2.3%], P = 0.165), whereas 41% (117/282) of febrile children had a respiratory viral infection, compared with 24.8% (29/117) of controls (P = 0.002). Only 9/515 (1.7%) children had streptococcal infection. Of febrile children, 22/269 (8.2%) were infected with > 1 pathogen, and 102/275 (37.1%) had fevers of unknown etiology. Respiratory viruses were common in both groups, but only influenza or parainfluenza was more likely to be associated with symptomatic disease (attributable fraction [AF] 67.5% and 59%, respectively). Malaria was overdiagnosed and overtreated. Few children presented to the hospital with GAS pharyngitis. An enhanced understanding of carriage of common pathogens, improved diagnostic capacity, and better-informed clinical algorithms for febrile illness are needed.© The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

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