Communicable disease-related sudden death in the 21st century in Nigeria

Abstract

Background

Some cases of sudden death (SD) have been attributed to communicable diseases (CD) in middle- and low-income countries of the world even in this 21st century. CDs produce clinical symptoms and signs over several days before culminating in death. They are also amenable to treatment with antimicrobials if affected persons present early. We sought to find out the incidence of CD-related SD at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital (Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria) – a tertiary health facility in southwest Nigeria – and the prevailing associated factors.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective study of CD-related SD in adult patients aged 18 years and older that occurred from January 2003 to December 2011. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 16 was used for analysis of the generated data. Percentages and frequencies were calculated.

Results

There were 17 (39.6%) CD-related SDs out of the 48 cases of SD studied. CD-related SD also accounted for 2.4% of all adult medical admissions. The mean age of the patients was 37.6 ± 11.6 years, age range of 25–62 years, mode of 25 years, and median 34 years. The male-to-female ratio was 1.8:1. Typhoid sepsis was responsible for SD in 47.1% of patients, pulmonary tuberculosis in 17.7% of patients, and lobar pneumonia in 17.7% of patients. The most affected age group was the 20–29-year-old group (41.2%), while the unskilled occupational group was the most affected occupational group with 35.3% of them having SD. Most of the patients with acute bacterial infection died of multiple organ failure.

Conclusion

There is an urgent need to step up public health strategies to curtail infections in this environment, encourage better use of the existing health facilities by the people, and the government should strive hard to make health a top priority.

Keywords:

• infections
• septic shock
• typhoid sepsis
• pulmonary tuberculosis
• HIV/AIDS
• public health

Acknowledgments

We express our sincere gratitude to Mr Oyetunde Gabriel Asa and his team at the Medical Records Department of LAUTECH Teaching Hospital, Osogbo. We are grateful to the cardiology unit house officers on rotation during the period of data collection for their assistance. We appreciate the resident doctors in the Department of Morbid Anatomy and Histopathology of the hospital, especially Dr Olabisi Aderibigbe for invaluable assistance in data collection. Finally, we are immensely grateful to Dr Esther Olufunmilayo Asekun-Olarinmoye and Dr Wasiu Olalekan Adebimpe, both of the Department of Community Medicine, College of Health-Sciences, Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria, for assisting with the statistics and proof reading of the manuscript. The authors funded the study.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.