Clinical signs predictive of severe illness in young Pakistani infants

OBJECTIVE: Early detection of specific signs and symptoms to predict severe illness is essential to prevent infant mortality. As a continuation of the results from the multicenter Young Infants Clinical Signs and Symptoms (YICSS) study, we present here the performance of the seven-sign algorithm in 3 age categories (0–6 days, 7–27 days and 28–59 days) in Pakistani infants aged 0–59 days. RESULTS: From September 2003 to November 2004, 2950 infants were enrolled (age group 0–6 days = 1633, 7–27 days = 817, 28–59 days = 500). The common reason for seeking care was umbilical redness or discharge (29.2%) in the 0–6 days group. Older age groups presented with cough (16.9%) in the 7–27 age group and (26.9%) infants in the 28–59 days group. Severe infection/sepsis was the most common primary diagnoses in infants requiring hospitalization across all age groups. The algorithm performed well in every age group, with a sensitivity of 85.9% and specificity of 71.6% in the 0–6 days age group and a sensitivity of 80.5% and specificity of 80.2% in the 28–59 days group; the sensitivity was slightly lower in the 7–27 age group (72.4%) but the specificity remained high (83.1%).