Pyrexia in children with burns : investigations into a number of possible aetiological factors in the University Teaching Hospital

Pyrexia is seen in 93 percent of all children with burns admitted to the University Teaching Hospital, Department of Surgery, Lusaka, Zambia. Sixty five percent of these had fever on the first day of admission. The cause could not be determined with certainty.Pyrexia was a common feature in patients with bum wound sepsis. Culture studies from wounds in the first week of admission yielded gram positive organisms, the pattern changed in the subsequent weeks to include gram 4 negative organisms. There was no statistically significant association between pyrexia and the presence of sepsis as determined by blood culture and wound swab culture. Malaria parasitaemia was seen in 5 percent of pyrexial children and 63 percent of all pyrexial children were treated by antimalarial medication.