Evaluating Fever of Unidentifiable Source

ven with a thorough history and a complete physical examina-tion, one in five acutely ill, non-toxic-appearing children have an unidentifiable source of fever.1-4 Although most of these children have a self-limited viral illness, studies from the 1980s and 1990s have shown that 7 to 13 percent of children younger than 36 months without evident sources of fever had occult bactere-mia and serious bacterial infection (SBI).5-7 More recent research has demonstrated a significant decrease in the number of cases of occult bacteremia and SBI in febrile children since the advent of Haemophilu