Personalised Risk Assessment in Febrile Illness to Optimise Real-life Management Across the European Union (PERFORM)
Childhood fever is a prevalent problem. Most febrile children who visit hospital improve without treatment, but a minority require treatment, and a few will have severe disease. The investigators want to improve the diagnosis and management of febrile children by developing tests to distinguish between bacterial and viral disease so that antibiotic treatment can be initiated promptly and only when required. Judicious and prudent use of antibiotics will reduce the likelihood of developing resistant organisms and save treatment costs. The investigators will prospectively recruit acutely febrile children presenting to hospital, collecting research samples for validation of biomarkers, in combination with clinical phenotypic markers and host genetic markers (BIVA-studies). Any febrile child newborn to under 18 presenting to hospital will be eligible for recruitment. The study will last 5 years.
• All children \<18 years with fever \>38ºC, or a history of fever (within 3 days), in whom the attending clinician determines the need for blood sampling or whom parents give consent for bloods taken for research purposes
• All children \<18 years suspected of infection, including the full spectrum of disease severity and co-morbidities.
• Afebrile control children who are having blood tests for reasons other than for investigation of infectious or inflammatory illness.