Acute infection as cause of hospitalization of asylum-seeking children and adolescents in Stockholm, Sweden 2015–2016

We aimed to identify hospitalizations due to infectious diseases among asylum seekers and compare them to those of the resident population 1.6.2015–31.10.2016. Administrative numbers assigned to hospitalized non-resident children made them identifiable in the discharge register. The examined populations, expressed as person-years, were 334,573 residents and 7565 asylum seekers. There were 2500 episodes of infectious disease in 2240 resident children and 139 episodes in 121 asylum seekers. Among prevalent infections contracted before or during migration, there were 33 cases of tuberculosis, four of malaria, and one of louse-borne relapsing fever, all of which occurred in 13–17-year-old unaccompanied minors. Among younger asylum seekers, there were no significant differences in the spectrum of infectious discharge diagnoses compared to residents, but across all incident infections, 0–6-year-old asylum seekers had 3.2-fold and 7–12-year-old a 4.7-fold greater risk of being admitted. Screening for multidrug-resistant bacteria showed that 45/160 (28%) of the asylum seekers were colonized, but clinical infections caused by these species were rare. Conclusion: There was a high rate of hospitalizations for acute infectious diseases in asylum-seeking children, but the spectrum and severity of infections were similar to that in resident children. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00431-020-03795-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.