Abstract:
Back ground; Sever acute malnutrition (SAM) and visceral leishmaniasis (VL) are important public
health problems which affect millions of people worldwide. Both are major problems of the pediatric
population in developing nations including Ethiopia.
Nevertheless, there is paucity of studies regarding the nutritional outcome after the treatment of pediatric
visceral leishmaniasis in Ethiopia
Objective; the overall purpose of this study is to assess the nutritional status of VL treated patients and
associated factors in the treatment of pediatric visceral leishmaniasis (VL) at Arba Minch Hospital
(AMH), Leishmania Research and Treatment Center (LRTC)
Methods and material; A five years retrospective study, with source population of pediatric VL patients
aged 15 years and less was included in the study. Structured questionnaire was employed to collect data
from medical records of VL cases at leishmania research and treatment center, Arba Minch General
Hospital. The data was entered to EpiData (version 3.5.1) and the SPSS (version 20.0) data bases. Data
was analyzed and presented the results in frequencies, percentages and tables. Association of variables
was done using chi-square, logistic regression accordingly with p-value <0.05 was used as significant for
associated variables.
The parameters analyzed were VL disease category; duration of illness; demographic characteristics of
VL patients; co-morbidities, and nutritional status.
Results: A total of 234 patients were included in the study with mean and median of 113.5 & 120 months
respectively with standard deviation of + 45.9 months (ranged 24 to 180 months), male accounted for
75.6 % with a male: female to sex ratio of 3.1.
The majority of patients (99.6%) were primary VL. The majority of patients presented 1-6 months since
the onset of illness. Patients were assessed for presence or absence of co morbidities with VL. As shown
in table 2 one quarter of patients had one or more concomitant infection(s)
Anemia was diagnosed in 99.6 % of patients; half of them had hemoglobin level below 7 g/dl with mean
and median of 7 ± 1.6 g/dl
The nutritional statuses of patients were assessed at admission and end of treatment using BAZ, HAZ and
WAZ. As shown in table 3, the mean difference in the nutritional status between the two groups has a
value less than the level of significance i.e. patients showed statistically significantly greater mean BAZ
