{"doi":"10.1093/cid/ciab289","title":"Pathogens That Cause Acute Febrile Illness Among Children and Adolescents in Burkina Faso, Madagascar, and Sudan","abstract":"BACKGROUND: The etiology and optimal clinical management of acute febrile illness (AFI) is poorly understood. METHODS: Blood samples taken from study participants with acute fever (≥37.5°C) or a history of fever and recruited into the previous Typhoid Fever Surveillance in Africa (TSAP) study were evaluated using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based TaqMan-Array Card designed to detect a panel of bacterial, viral, and parasitic pathogens. Clinical metadata were also assessed. RESULTS: A total of 615 blood samples available for analysis originated from Burkina Faso (n = 53), Madagascar (n = 364), and Sudan (n = 198) and were taken from participants ranging in age from 0-19 years. Through the TaqMan-Array Card, at least 1 pathogen was detected in 62% (33 of 53), 24% (86 of 364), and 60% (118 of 198) of specimens from Burkina Faso, Madagascar, and Sudan, respectively. The leading identified pathogen overall was Plasmodium spp., accounting for 47% (25 of 53), 2.2% (8 of 364), and 45% (90 of 198) of AFI at the respective sites. In Madagascar, dengue virus was the most prevalent pathogen (10.2%). Overall, 69% (357 of 516) of patients with clinical diagnoses of malaria, respiratory infection, or gastrointestinal infection were prescribed a World Health Organization guideline-recommended empiric antibiotic, whereas only 45% (106 of 237) of patients with pathogens detected were treated with an antibiotic exerting likely activity. CONCLUSIONS: A PCR approach for identifying multiple bacterial, viral, and parasitic pathogens in whole blood unveiled a diversity of previously undetected pathogens in AFI cases and carries implications for the appropriate management of this common syndrome.","journal":"Clinical Infectious Diseases","year":2021,"id":159967,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":38,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9587,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":289247,"name":"Jie Liu","orcid":"0000-0003-2658-5249","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":586733,"name":"Abdramane Soura","orcid":"0000-0002-1539-6357","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":586734,"name":"Nagla Gasmelseed","orcid":"0000-0002-8170-3853","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":511267,"name":"Darwin J. Operario","orcid":"0000-0002-3815-9311","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":672056,"name":"Brian Grundy","orcid":"0000-0003-2243-3395","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":673019,"name":"John Wieser","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":444415,"name":"Jean Gratz","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":672057,"name":"Christian G. Meyer","orcid":"0000-0001-5561-2985","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":586731,"name":"Justin Im","orcid":"0000-0002-3762-084X","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":672058,"name":"Jacqueline Kyungah Lim","orcid":"0000-0001-6744-7825","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":587361,"name":"Vera von Kalckreuth","orcid":null,"position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":586730,"name":"Ligia María Cruz Espinoza","orcid":"0000-0003-0429-4723","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":586743,"name":"Frank Konings","orcid":"0000-0003-0070-4457","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":672059,"name":"Hyon Jin Jeon","orcid":"0000-0002-2344-4574","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":670046,"name":"Raphaël Rakotozandrindrainy","orcid":null,"position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":672060,"name":"Jixian Zhang","orcid":"0000-0003-3933-2558","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":587360,"name":"Ursula Panzner","orcid":null,"position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":289258,"name":"Eric R. Houpt","orcid":"0000-0003-1085-1354","position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":491677,"name":"Florian Marks","orcid":"0000-0002-6043-7170","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":35,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:44:43.908634Z","pmid":"33822011","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}