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Vaccines, hygiene could stop diarrhoea deaths - UN
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 14 - 10 - 2009


Diarrhoea causes one in five
child deaths across the world but getting important vaccines to
Africa and Asia could help save many lives, Reuters quoted two U.N. agencies
as saying today.
Some 1.5 million children die each year from diarrhoea, --
more than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined -- yet only 39
percent of children with diarrhoea in developing countries get
the right treatment, the World Health Organisation and the
United Nations children's fund UNICEF said in a report.
Vaccinations against rotavirus, the leading cause of severe
gastroenteritis with vomiting and diarrhoea in babies and
children, as well as better sanitation and proper rehydration
treatment would help solve the problem, they said.
Rotavirus causes around 40 percent of hospital admissions
from diarrhoea in children under five worldwide, according to
the report, and vaccination against it has recently been
recommended for all national immunisation programmes.
Only a few, mostly developed and richer nations include
rotavirus vaccine in routine childhood immunisation programmes,
but the WHO has been working to make two vaccines -- Rotateq
from Merck & Co and Rotarix from GlaxoSmithKline
-- more widely available in developing countries.
"Accelerating its introduction in Africa and Asia, where the
rotavirus burden is greatest, needs to become an international
priority," said the report.
It also said two mainstays of diarrhoea treatment -- zinc
supplements and low-osmolarity oral rehydration salts -- are
still hard to come by in many poorer countries.
"We know what works to reduce child deaths from diarrhoea
and what actions will make a lasting reduction in the burden of
diarrhoea," Tessa Wardlaw of UNICEF and Elizabeth Mason of the
WHO said in a commentary in The Lancet medical journal.
"We need to make the prevention and treatment of diarrhoea
everybody's business, from families and communities to
government leaders to the global community."
More than 80 percent of child deaths due to diarrhoea occur
in Africa and South Asia and just 15 countries account for
almost three quarters of all deaths from diarrhoea among
children under five each year. India has the highest number of
annual deaths at 386,600.
The report set an action plan to try prevent more childhood
deaths from diarrhoea. It stressed that simple steps like
encouraging hand washing, promoting breastfeeding for small
babies, and discouraging open defecation were crucial.
"Nearly one in four people in developing countries practice
open defecation," the authors said. "And despite some recent
progress, only 37 percent of infants in developing countries are
exclusively breastfed for the first six months."
An estimated 88 per cent of diarrhoeal deaths worldwide are
due to unsafe water and poor sanitation or hygiene, they added.


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