The Sunday News
Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, Gwanda Correspondent
AT least 200 cases of pneumonia and bronchiolitis have been reported at Gwanda Provincial Hospital in the last two weeks, affecting mainly children below the age of seven, officials have said.
In an interview, Gwanda Provincial Hospital medical superintendent Dr Pugie Chimberengwa said 41 children aged between one and seven years had been admitted to the hospital from 19 February to date while 178 were treated at the outpatients department. He said a third of these cases were of pneumonia.
“We started seeing an upsurge of both upper and lower respiratory tract infections as from February 19. Most cases were bronchiolitis while a third of the cases developed to pneumonia. The affected children are aged between one and seven years old with most being aged two and three years old.
“The cases reached their peak on February 28 but we managed to handle them as the children responded well to treatment and most who were admitted have been discharged.
“We had 41 admissions while we treated 178 children at the outpatients department,” he said.
Dr Chimberengwa said symptoms for the affected children included high temperature, coughing, difficulty in breathing and eating, dehydration, fast heart beat, among others.
He said cases which were being reported per day were however, now declining.
“The children’s ward has been full for the past two weeks but we are now working on mopping up the few cases that are left.
“We were able to administer necessary treatment such as antibiotics, adrenaline drugs and supply of oxygen and the children responded well. We suspect that the main cause of this outbreak is the prevailing cold spell although some of the cases could have been as a result of bacterial infection,’’ he said.
Dr Chimberengwa urged mothers with children below six months to breastfeed them exclusively for six months in order to avoid such outbreaks and other infections. He also urged parents to ensure that children had warm clothing on and were being fed a balanced diet.
A woman from Gwanda Town whose one-year-old child was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. Ms Sibonginkosi Zhou said her daughter fell ill on 18 February.
“My daughter fell in on 18 February and I brought her to hospital on the following day after realising that she had symptoms of pneumonia. She has responded well to treatment as she is much better. She is however, still to regain weight as she lost a lot over the past days,’’ she said.
Bronchiolitis is a nasty form of flue that mostly affects children aged two and three years old. It can advance to bacterial pneumonia that needs to be treated with antibiotics.
The case in Gwanda comes after there was a similar outbreak was reported in Harare last week. Hospitals in the capital city were reportedly battling with the infections as children’s hospitals were failing to cope with increased patients.
