Background: Febrile illness in children is an important cause of morbidity and mortality and often present with diagnostic challenge. Clinical management guidelines for acute febrile illness (AFI) are available, but knowledge of the locally prevalent causative agents is lacking behind.
Objectives: Objective of this study was to evaluate the clinical and etiological profile of AFI patients admitted to a tertiary care teaching Institute, in the eastern part of India.
Patients and methods: This cross sectional study was conducted on children aged from 3 months to 12 years, with history of fever of 4-7 days duration and satisfied the inclusion – exclusion criteria. Period of study was from February 2020 to July 2021.
Results: Among 100 patient in this study, females were 51 and males were 49. Patients with age age>5 years comprised 41 %.  Etiologies of AFI were undifferentiated fever in 24%, pneumonia
(12%), dengue (8%), acute gastroenteritis (7%), bronchiolitis (7%), Multiple Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) (6%), Scrub (6%) and other infections. Gastrointestinal, central nervous and respiratory systems were involved in 73%, 46% and 38% respectively. Infectious causes (92%) were significantly higher than non-infectious causes (8 %). Complications were present in 27 % of patient. Survival rate was 90 %. Among the risk factors, living in congested area and incomplete immunization were most important .
Conclusion: Etiology in many of AFI remain undifferentiated. Further research and active surveillance on this field will promote appropriate management and improve the survival of patients.