Trend and mortality pattern of communicable diseases in a tertiary care hospital in Kerala

Abstract

Background: Communicable disease burden in India is very high. Surveillance of communicable diseases is an important epidemiological tool to monitor current disease burden, monitor trends, and to identify outbreaks. This study was conducted in a retrospective manner to identify the changing trends of communicable diseases, and its mortality during the period of 2015-2020.Methods: This record based cross sectional study was done in Government Medical College Thrissur. All confirmed communicable disease cases reported during the study period was included in the present study except COVID-19 positive cases. The communicable diseases were classified as: Air borne, water borne, vector borne, vaccine preventable diseases, zoonosis, and blood borne diseases. Data were entered in excel 2007 and statistical analysis was done using SPSS software version 16. Results were expressed as frequencies, percentages.Results: Total number of cases reported were 14337. Maximum number of cases were in 2019. The most common type of communicable diseases that was reported was airborne diseases (2370, 34.85%) followed by vector borne diseases (1825, 26.83%). The total number of deaths reported was 764. Airborne diseases accounted for more than 70% of deaths. The overall CFR was found to be higher for pneumonia (19%), followed by H1N1 (17.8%).Conclusions: Communicable disease is still a major public health problem in India. The most common type of communicable disease that was reported was airborne disease. Airborne disease also accounted for more than half of all death. The study emphasizes the importance of a proper surveillance system in controlling outbreaks of communicable diseases.