TRENDS AND CAUSES OF MORBIDITY IN PART OF CHILDREN IN THE CITY OF SANA'A, YEMEN 1978-2018: FINDINGS OF SINGLE CHILDREN'S HEALTH CENTER
Authors: Al-Shamahy Hassan A. , Ishak Abdulrahman A. 
Published: January 2021

Background and aims: Yemen has made notable progress in dropping child mortality over the past four decades. In spite of this, due to political instability and the foreign aggression on the country in the past ten years, the incidence of diseases and deaths escalated. The mortality rate of children under the age of 5 in Yemen is still high compared to many low and middle countries (LMIC). Alternatively, patterns and causes of child morbidity in Yemen have not been well inspected. The aim of this study was to investigate the trend of morbidity and causes of disease among children ≤16 years old in Sana'a city, Yemen from 1978 to 2018 based on data from a single child health center.
Subjects and methods: Data was collected from a private children Health Center in Sana'a. Data collection and analysis was performed for 4 months starting from 15/6/2020 and ending on 9/26/2020. The records included clinical and laboratory investigations for children who visited the out-patient clinic of the medical center. The study included 8,861 clinical diagnosed cases, 4,833 males and 4,028 females, between the ages of less than one year and 16 years. The frequency distribution of the different variables and the ratios of cases containing data on these variables were analyzed and their significance (P-value) was calculated using Chi-squared "N-1" test.
Results: Between 1978 and 2018, respiratory diseases were the most common accounting for 44.3% of the total causes, followed by gastrointestinal diseases (30.3%), and other diseases such as skin diseases, nutritional disorders, and urinary tract infections by 5.2%, 3.9% and 3.9 % respectively. In addition, central nervous system diseases (CNS) (3.1%), hematology (1.7%), and heart disease (1.33%) were rare childhood diseases.
Conclusions: Respiratory diseases and gastrointestinal diseases remain among the main causes of children's diseases in Sana'a, Yemen. These findings call for better newborn and child recovery and survival interventions that focus on the key factors that lead to childhood disease.

Peer Review History:
Received 6 November 2020; Revised 25 Decembe; Accepted 4 January, Available online 15 January 2021
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Received file: Comments of reviewer(s):
Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 6.5/10
Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 8.0/10
Reviewer(s) detail:
Dr. Ali Awad Allah Ali Moh. Saeed, National University, Sudan, alimhsd@gmail.com
Dr. Gulam Mohammed Husain, National Research Institute of Unani Medicine for Skin Disorders, Hyderabad, India, gmhusain@gmail.com
Dr. Sunita Singh, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA, sunita.nccs@gmail.com
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