Abstract:

Background and objectives: Fever is a very common clinical symptom in children and one of the leading causes for medical consultation in most children of age below five years. Where by in Sub-Saharan Africa, febrile episodes remain the dominant indication of diseases in children under five and represents 6-30% of all practice visits (1). This study aim at determining the proportion of non-malaria fever and practice in managing non malaria fever cases to children under five years attending at Buzuruga health center in Mwanza.

Methods: This is retrospective health center based study which was conducted at Buzuruga health center data was collected from files and recorded using structured forms. SPSS software version 20 was used for data analysis.

Results: A total of 265 files patients aged between 0 to 5 years were reviewed in the study and the proportion on non-malaria fever cases was (87.5%, n=232) of whom (52.2%, n=121) were further investigated for other causes of fever while (47.8%, n=111) were not investigated. Antibiotics prescription was high with observed irrational prescription of (41.9%, n=111). Few children (0.75%, n=2) were given ant malaria drugs despite being mRDT negative.

Conclusion and Recommendation: Majority of children were given antibiotics without further investigation of the cause of fever episodes as they were mRDT negative. Lack correct examination of under-fives, correct final diagnosis and proper prescription of antibiotics based on final diagnosis of bacterial infections also suggests non-compliance to prescription guidelines. This practices contribute to the increase of antibiotics resistance.