Table 3.

Percent distribution of hospitalized patients by age-group and 5 leading causes of illness in 5 rural hospitals of Bangladesh, 1997-2001

Type of disease	<5 years (n=17,815)	5-14 years (n=6,814)	15-45 years (n=23,746)	>45 years (n=6,529)
Diarrhoeal diseases	50.9	49.9	22.4	22.7
Watery diarrhoea	49.9	47.9	21.2	21.5
Dysentery	1.0	1.9	1.2	1.2
Injuries	2.3	16.6	41.4	31.7
Assault	0.5	5.8	29.8	26.8
Road traffic accident	0.2	3.0	3.7	3.5
Others	1.6	7.8	7.9	1.4
Respiratory diseases	41.5	6.9	3.7	12.8
Pneumonia	18.0	1.7	0.3	0.7
Acute respiratory infection	22.3	2.6	0.3	0.3
Tuberculosis	0.02	0.03	0.2	0.2
Chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases	0.7	1.3	1.5	6.7
Respiratory tract infection	0.5	1.0	1.3	3.1
Others	0.1	0.3	0.2	1.8
Gastrointestinal tract diseases	1.9	14.2	22.1	22.0
Peptic ulcer diseases	0.1	0.6	5.0	5.0
Abdominal pain	1.8	13.4	16.6	18.1
Others	0.1	0.2	0.4	0.5
Febrile illnesses	3.4	12.4	10.4	10.8
Fever without definite diagnosis	3.2	10.6	8.5	8.8
Enteric fever	0.1	1.6	1.7	1.2
Malaria	0.03	0.13	0.15	0.2