1 Room 225, Bldg 48, Department of Community Health University of Kansas Medical Center, 39th and Rainbow Blvd, Kansas City, KS 66103
In Reply.
We elected not to quantify the severity of the infections among the 251 infants in our study, because we did not personally see all the infants at the time of their infections, and because only five of the 251 were hospitalized. Cunningham selected infants with four types of infection which he labeled as "more serious illnesses" and "significant illness" from our list which contained more than a dozen different types of infection. He based his conclusions on these four types or groups of infection.
He has calculated rates of illness per 100 infants. However, in calculating rates, the numerator must have all events that are being measured and each event must be in the denominator.