Descriptive study reports high rates of severe acute malnutrition in pediatric patients, suggesting need for improved care.
Context and objective. Malnutrition constitutes a major public health problem in Mali. The objective of this study was to describe the epidemiological, clinical, therapeutic profile and outcome of children aged 6 to 59 months suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) hospitalized in the Pediatric Unit of the Kalaban Coro District Hospital in Mali. Methods. This was a descriptive study of usable medical records of children hospitalized for severe acute malnutrition in the Pediatric Department of the Kalaban Coro District Hospital from January 2018 to December 2019. The data collected using a standardized questionnaire was analyzed with SPSS Version 20 software. Results. Five hundred and thirty-four (534) SAM children out of 2836 hospitalized were included, which corresponds to a hospital frequency of 18.8%. The 12-to-23-month age group (49.1%), and the female gender (53.18%) were the most affected. The predominant form of malnutrition was marasmus (77.7%). The main comorbidities found were gastroenteritis (39.3%) and malaria (35.4%). The recovery, dropout and death rates represented 88.7%, 2.1% and 9.2%, respectively. Conclusion. The hospital frequency of SAM remains high at the Kalaban Coro District Hospital. Better prevention of immediate causes and timely referral could help reduce prevalence and children prognostic. Received: April 20th, 2024 Accepted: le June 16th, 2025 https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/aamed.v18i4.14
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Diarra et al. (2025) studied this question.
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