Infections developing with hospitalized pediatric victim after Kahramanmaraş, Turkey earthquake: An experience In a tertiary care hospital of Turkey

Background: On February 6th 2023, two major devastating earthquakes occurred in Turkey, hundreds of thousands of people were injured and over fifty thousand deaths occurred. In this article, we aimed to present the infections that occurring in pediatric earthquake victims hospitalized after the February 6, 2023 Turkey earthquake. Methods: The ages of 0-18 years who were administed in pediatric wards and pediatric intensive care unit , 220 patients included in this study. We retrospectively collected data on pathogens from cultures of blood, catheter, wound, and urinary specimens. We recorded the types of infections, the isolated microorganisms, their antimicrobial susceptibility, and the treatments administered. Results: The study comprised 220 patients. The median age of patients was 9 years (min-max: 0-17 years), median duration of hospital length of stay was 17 days (min - max:1-67 days). Fifty seven (25,9%) of them had nosocomial infection.There was growth in the wound culture of 37 patients (16.8%), in the blood culture of 11 (5%), in the intravascular catheter culture 4 (1,8 %) and in the urine culture of 5 (2.2%) patients.The most frequently isolated pathogen in wound infection was Acinetobacter baumannii with a rate of 47.8%.There was a predominance of 81,8% (n=10) for gram-negative bacteria in blood cultures. Conclusions: Infectious complications caused by resistant gram-negative bacteria in earthquake-induced wound infections were accompanied by higher mortality and morbidity rates. When skin integrity is disrupted as a result of earthquake-related injuries, colonisations can happen and cause infections. Gram-negative bacteria, which are also common in hospital-acquired infections, cause difficult infections due to multidrug resistance.