Introduction:

Chikungunya fever (CHKF) is a febrile disease transmitted by mosquitoes, which presentes different clinical manifestations in children, depending on their age group.

Objective:

to describe the clinical and outcome characteristics of CHKF in patients ≤15 years old, who presented to the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM).

Materials and methods:

this was a retrospective, descriptive and observational study, based on the review of medical records of patients between 0 and 15 years of age, who were evaluated at the ITM, between November/2022 and March/2023, who were diagnosed with CHKF.

Results:

of 2050 febrile patients who consulted at the ITM between November/2022 and March/2023, 301 were cases of CHKF, 10.6% (32/301) required hospitalization, of which 62.5% (20/32) were ≤ 1 year of age. The presence of vomiting (p<0.0001, OR= 5.5, 95% CI 2.2-13.2), abdominal pain (p<0.0001, OR=40.5.5, 95% CI 4.5-364.3); maculo-papular-bullous rash (p<0.008, OR=3.5, 95% CI 1.3 - 9.1), was significantly more frequent in hospitalized patients. 37.5% (12/32) were hospitalized in the ICU and 15.6% (5/32) required ARM, 18.7% (6/32) presented myocarditis; 15.6%(5/32) encephalitis, and 3.1%(1/32) had both encephalitis and myocarditis. No deaths were registered.

Conclusions:

One tenth of the patients with CHKF required hospitalization, of which more than half were <1 year of age. The most frequent clinical manifestations were fever, rash, vomiting, irritability, arthralgia, and bullous lesions. Leukopenia was significantly more frequent in those ≤1 year of age. Age <3 months, as well as vomiting, vesicular-bullous rash, shock, irritability, seizures, abdominal pain, and respiratory distress were significantly associated with the need for hospitalization. The most frequent complications were shock, myocarditis and encephalitis.

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