Prevalence of acute respiratory tract infection and its risk factors in under five children.

This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence and risk factors of the disease among under five children in a rural community. Three villages were randomly selected from the Ghoraghat thana of Dinajpur district. All under five children were followed once a month for consecutive four months and all the target variables were checked and recorded in the questionnaire. 566 out of the total of 965 under five children had ARI episodes during the study period. The prevalence of ARI in the community was 58.7%. However, the incidence in both sexes were 14.7%. It was 14.9% and 14.4% in male and female respectively. The mean number of episodes of ARI was 1.75 per child per year. Among studied risk factors, malnutrition (63% vs. 37%), illiteracy (64% vs. 36%), poverty (62% vs. 38%), overcrowding (62% vs. 38%) and parental smoking (61% vs. 39%) were found in significantly higher proportions in ARI victims compared to those without ARI. These observations emphasize the need for research aimed at health system to determine the most appropriate approaches to control acute respiratory infection and thus could be utilized to strengthen the ARI control programme.