Introduction
Pediatric diseases are diseases that infect the children during their childhood. There are thousands of diseases that infect the children during their growing years however if proper care is taken the disease will not infect your child. Statistics prove that about half of the deaths occurring in developing countries is childhood deaths. The four major pediatric diseases which cause these are pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and measles. It is said that around 10,000 to 13,000 children die from these diseases each day. Another major problem which can be called the root cause of all the pediatric diseases is malnutrition. Because malnutrition weakens the child’s immune system their bodies are not able to fight these diseases and they die. Not only do this but the developing countries not have the proper facilities to help recover the children from such issues especially those medical centers that are run by the government. Because not everyone can afford a private hospital, those who fall into the vicious cycle of a government hospital it is quite difficult for them to get a good quality treatment.
History
Starting off with the common pediatric diseases the first disease which almost every child faces during their growing years is chicken pox. The symptoms are red and itchy spots, which are in blister form and are completely scattered all over body. The child may also have a mild fever. To reduce the itching the best way is to apply calamine lotion over the blisters or if the case is very severe one must use an anti-viral medicine. It is caused by primary infection with varicella zoster virus which is one of the eight herpes viruses which infect humans and commonly children and the first symptom as stated above is the skin rash. It is highly contagious and can be spread through coughing and sneezing because it is an airborne disease. It stays from 10 to 20 days since the infection starts showing the symptoms. The child should be excluded from school so that other children are not infected. Whooping cough is another pediatric disease which is described with long periods of coughing and wheezy breathing, vomiting might also be one of the symptoms. These symptoms become severe during the night. It is very contagious and is a bacterial disease. The coughing lasts up to six weeks and can be prevented through vaccination because in this case prevention is actually better than cure.
Features
Scarlet fever is another one of pediatric diseases which are characterized by slight to mild fever along with a sore throat and rash which can be found around the armpits or the groin. Peeling can also occur. The disease is caused by exotoxin which is a toxin released by microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi or algae. To treat this antibiotics are ideally given and children should be kept home during the duration of the disease. The incubation period up to eight days since the day the child was exposed to the disease and started to show symptoms.
Tips and comments
Above are mentioned some of the common pediatric diseases, their causes and treatments. Prevention is always better than cure therefore it is always a good thing to keep a good hygiene level because as it can be seen most of the diseases are caused by bacteria and today it is a proved fact that just washing your hand with a good antibacterial soap you can get rid of at least 100 bacteria related diseases. Washing hands is not an expensive treatment and can be afforded by everyone therefore try to keep a good hygiene level and avoid such diseases.
