The Importance of Paediatrics in Developing Countries

Thomas Stapleton (Secretary-General, International Paediatric Association, Professor of Child Health, University of Sydney, Camperdown, Australia.)

Paediatrica Indonesiana
Vol 15 No 1-2 (1975): January - February 1975

The rate of tuberculous infection is high. In many areas by the age of ten to fourteen years almost half the population have become tuberculin positive, not as a result of BCG vaccination, but as a result of infection acquired from someone in their environment.The fact that you have selected paediatric emergencies as one of the themes of this congress is merely a reflection that the overall mortality of children admitted to the children’s wards in a great teaching hospital such as you have here in Surabaya is of the order of fifteen to twenty per cent.