Skin diseases in children in Singapore.

Singapore has developed over the past 3 decades with improvement in housing, nutrition and general health. The pattern of skin diseases has changed from conditions like pyodermas and malnutrition to predominantly eczemas. The paediatric cases seen at Middle Road Hospital consist of 13% of general dermatology cases (509 of 37,964 total new cases in 1986). About 2.7% (138) of the children were below 1 year, 32.5% (1630) were below 1-4 years and 64.5% (3251) were below 14 years of age. The ten most common dermatoses (1986) follow a similar trend in most of the developed towns of Asia. This includes eczemas 32.0% (1603 cases); 14.5% (730) of atopics, non-specified eczemas 9.6% (481), hand eczema 4.1% (209), contact dermatitis 1.7% (90), discoid eczema 1.15% (57), seborrhoeic 0.7% (36). The remaining are viral warts 6.8% (342), scabies 3.2% (302), acne 3.7% (180), pyoderma 3.5% (175), dermatophytes 3.3% (169), urticaria 2.6% (134), pityriasis rosea 0.1% (51) and vitiligo 0.09% (46).