Nutritional status of children with dengue hemorrhagic fever

Nutritional status was assessed for 100 patients with serologically confirmed dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), 125 patients with other infectious diseases who were admitted to Children's Hospital (Bangkok), and 184 healthy children. The assessment was done with use of the following parameters: weight for age, height for age, and circumference of the middle of the left arm. There were 13 patients classified as undernourished by weight for age, nine of whom were determined to have first-degree malnutrition; six of these had grade II severity of DHF and three had grade III DHF severity. Four patients, two each of grade II and III DHF severity, had second-degree malnutrition. All were considered to be healthy when nutritional status was assessed by height for age and mid-left arm circumference. The prevalence of 13% malnutrition found among patients with DHF is significantly lower than the prevalence of malnutrition found among patients with other infectious diseases and among healthy children. The study confirmed the observation generally made that most patients with DHF are not undernourished.