Abstract
We evaluated the medical care of infants and children at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH), Lusaka, Zambia in comparison with that in the Department of Pediatrics, National Tsu Hospital (NTH), Mie, Japan. UTH had 17, 606 in patients under 15y. o. in 1987, and NTH had 902 in patients during 1989 and 1990. The under-5-y. o. in patients' rate at UTH was 86.1%, significantly higher than that of TNH (67.1%) (p<0.01). In classification of diseases, UTH showed the following: infectious disease 53.4%, non-infectious disease 13.3%, accidents 15.8% and malnutrition 17.5%, whereas NTH showed infectious disease 63.2%, non-infectious disease 32.9% and accidents 3.9%. As for mortality, 16.8% of inpatients (2, 954 cases) died in the ward at UTH, and only 0.3% of inpatients in the ward at TNH. The causes of death in the ward at UTH were the following: malnutrition 39.4% (1, 163 cases), diarrhea 16.0% (473 cases) and lower respiratory tract infection 13.7% (406 cases). We concluded that developing countries showed a great difference in actual medical care state as compared with that in Japan, and that it needed extensive cooperation in the field of education in public health, education at school, production of food and industry to accomplish an improvement in the medical care system.
