Anemia is a risk factor for Bronchiolitis

Abstract

Introduction: The bronchiolitis outbreak is common in Bangladesh. The infantile period is the transitional period for weaning, when inadequate & inappropriate supplementary food has eaten, then a child starts to decline hemoglobin level. In this period incidence and prevalence of bronchiolitis become high. There are very few studies on anemia with bronchiolitis in this country, whereas this is very important to disclose any relation between them in the aspect of our society. Possibly it is one of the few studies between anemia with bronchiolitis which conducted in Bangladesh and only on infants. Methods: This descriptive type of cross-sectional study was conducted in the Pediatric department of Institute of Child & Mother Health (ICMH), Dhaka, Bangladesh, on 165 infants selected by simple random sampling. Face to face interview with parents, physical examination on infants, chest X-ray and complete blood count was done and noted in a semi-structured questionnaire. Results: Most samples were up to 3 months, whereas data collected up to 12 months, most were male (75%), 71% came from the rural area and more the half (58%) were middle class. One fifth (20%) were anemic according to Hemoglobin level (less than 11 gm/dl). Prevalence of bronchiolitis was more in anemic children (P<0.03). Conclusion & Recommendation: Anemic children were suffered by bronchiolitis more, which indicates anemia is a risk factor for bronchiolitis. There need multi-centric study, control group to understand the real picture of the disease prevalence of bronchiolitis and relation with anemia. This study has provided a baseline for future intervention studies which could inform policy formulation and review in Bangladesh towards bronchiolitis prevention and control.