[Living conditions, nutritional status and morbidity in children in prisons and detention centers in Burkina Faso].

In Burkina Faso, although children are sometimes separated from adults in prisons, they still live in the same conditions of overcrowding, which can reach 180% of the capacity. The aim of our study was to describe living conditions, nutritional status, and morbidity of children in detention centers of Burkina Faso. The objective of this cross-sectional descriptive study is to describe the social and health conditions of children held in 20 detention centers in Burkina Faso. During the study period, 109 children, with a mean age of 16.3 years, were examined in 20 correction centers. The main reason for incarceration was theft (66% cases, n = 72). Detention exceeded more than one month for 76 children (70%), and 59% (N = 46) had had fewer than one visit per month since their incarceration. Of these 20 facilities, 6 had no separate quarters for children. The main symptoms and diseases encountered in these children were fever in 19% of the cases (N = 16), macroscopic hematuria in 13% (N = 11), urinary tract infection in 12% (N = 10) and diarrhea in 12% (N = 10). These results show that there is a need to take preventive measures to protect these children's health, especially by improving the quality of living conditions in detention center.