Children’s Health: Expert Advises Mothers On Malaria Symptoms

A Consultant Paediatrician, Dr Fatunke Fatoye, has advised mothers not to always assume that indications like fever, vomiting and abdominal pains in children are malaria symptoms.
Fatoye of the Department of Paediatrics, Federal Medical Centre, Keffi, Nasarawa State, gave the advice in an interview with newsmen on Tuesday in Lagos.
According to him, these symptoms can also be showing that the child has a condition known as “Acute Acalculous Cholecystitis (AAC)’’.
“Acute Acalculous Cholecystitis is a disease that affects the gall bladder; the gall bladder is a small sack that is attached to the liver that helps digestion.
“It also helps to store bile, which helps digestion.
“Though the condition is rare, but when it occurs, people may not think that it is AAC since it is not common; it is more in adults that children.
“But, if you find a child having fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, yellowness of the eyes, quickly seek a doctor’s attention.
“These symptoms can be misguided for malaria; and this is an advice for mothers who assume the health condition of their children when they see these signs without proper diagnosis.
“For people to know how the gall bladder looks like is why I like using slaughtering of chicken as example; there is this sack that must not burst inside the chicken when slaughtering, if it burst, the whole meat will be bitter, that is the gall bladder.
“So, the sack can become diseased; and some of the things that may point to that would be the child may be sick and he may be having pains from the right upper part of the tummy,’’ Fatoye said.
He enjoined parents to always pay attention to their children whenever they complain of pain on the right part of the abdomen particularly if they had yellowness of the eyes.