Etiological and Radiological Profile of Acute Lower Respiratory Infections during the Pre-COVID Period in the Paediatric Ward of the Teaching Hospital of Mali and in the Community Health Centre of Yirimadio in Bamako

Introduction: Every year, nearly 4 million people pass away from acute respiratory infections. 98% of such deaths are due to lower respiratory tract infections. Even though studies have been carried on lower respiratory infections x-ray aspects in Mali, very few studies have been done to reveal bacteriological and virological evidence of this disease. Materials and methods: It is about a descriptive prospective study carried out from January to December 2018 having involved patients of all ages, coming for medical consultation at the Yirimadio Community-based health center as well as children from 6 months to 15 years old coming at the pediatric department of UHC Hôpital du Mali for a lower respiratory infection. They had all undergone chest X-ray and a PCR. The purpose: of this work is to study etiological and x-ray aspects of acute lower respiratory infections at the Yirimadio Community-based Health Center and at the UHC pediatric department of Hôpital du Mali. Findings: From January to December 2018, we recorded a frequency of 1.19%. The age group 0 - 5 years was the most represented (64.5%) with a sex ratio of 0.97 for women. Cough was the most common clinical sign (98.7%) followed by fever (58.9%). Standard frontal chest X-ray was pathological in 70% of our patients. It was bronchitis in 75.4% of cases, pneumonia (13.5%), and bronchopneumonia (12.3%). PCR positive was in 83.9% of patients. It revealed a co-infection in more than half of the patients (52.5%), bacterial infection (16.1%) and viral infection (15.2%). Pathogens isolated ranked by frequency were Streptococcus pneumoniaa (87.6%) followed by Staphylococcus aureus (24.9%) and human rhinovirus (17%). The most common viral causes were human rhinovirus (17%), followed by influenza A and B virus (7%) and human parainfluenza virus (7%). Conclusion: It stemed from the study that lower respiratory infections were mainly due to Streptococcus pneumonea and human rhinovirus during pre-COVID at the Yirimadio Community-based health center and UHC Hôpital du Mali.