AN INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIVE MORBIDITY OF ZOONOSES IN PEDIATRIC-PATIENTS ADMITTED TO GA-RANKUWA HOSPITAL

Human-animal interaction is regarded as a positive factor in child dev elopment, yet fears have been expressed about the risk of zoonotic dis eases. A literature review of zoonotic diseases indicated that it was difficult to judge the relative importance of zoonoses in a population by using incidence or prevalence, as these were not available for all the zoonoses which could occur in children and the data which were av ailable were not comparative. Therefore, in order to investigate the r elative importance of zoonoses as a cause of disease in children, rela tive morbidities were calculated from available medical records from t he Department of Paedatrics and Child Health at Ga-Rankuwa Hospital. D iagnoses made were listed and ranked. The relative morbidities of zoon otic diseases were found to be very lo iv. It was concluded that this may have been partially due to the tendency for symptomatic rather tha n aetiological diagnoses to be made by clinicians, as several of the s ymptomatic diagnoses made (such as respiratory disease and gastroenter itis) could have had a zoonotic aetiology.