The battle against diarrhoea

Above left : breastfeeding Above : measles immunization Oral rehydration therapy Interventions In its efforts to save children's lives from diarrhoea. WHO gives top priority to oral rehydration therapy (ORT). which in- cludes continued feeding during and after illness. ORT ensures that fewer children need to go to hospitals or health centres and reduces the costs of treatment. Other vital interventions to prevent diar- rhoea and the malnutrition that goes with it are breast-feeding for the first two years of life and proper weaning . Measles immunization is another cost- effective means of preventing diarrhoea and reducing the dreadful toll of deaths it causes. The use of safe water and well- maintained latrines. and good personal and domestic hygiene, especially hand- washing, are simple environmental measures that can prevent disease transmission. Above: clean water Left : well-kept latrines Below : hand- washing - three factors that can help to beat killer diseases CO CO (J) I '::J <! L.U I 0 _J a: 0 s How diseases are transmitted Above : appropriate feeding Research Operational research is a key activity for national programmes to control diar- rhoea! diseases. First of all it is helping them to find the most effective means of applying available control strategies . But in addition more fundamental research , in both developed and developing countries, is seeking new ways to prevent sickness and death from diarrhoea. Avenues of research include: • devising appropriate ways of preparing ORT solutions in the home and assess- ing their impact ; • developing improved ORS that will also reduce the volume and duration of diarrhoea; • developing simple tests to identify enteric pathogens; • studying how infection is transmitted and how to interrupt its spread; • studying the association between Vita- min A deficiency- and diarrhoea sick- ness and death, and the effectiveness of Vitamin A supplements ; • developing oral vaccines against the major pathogens. Research to develop and test new control tools