Word: diarrheas
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...Diarrhea has been ignored for decades. For many people outside Africa, the continent's calamitous health problems are largely defined by two epidemics: AIDS and malaria. There is a World AIDS Day and a World Malaria Day, and countless medical researchers work to combat the two diseases. In 2008 about 60% of the world's funding for research into major epidemics went to AIDS and malaria; diarrhea received a tiny fraction in comparison. Just 4% of all U.S. funding for research into major developing-world epidemics in 2007 went to diarrhea. The European Commission has given about $1.33 billion...
...experts say the huge disparity is because most diarrhea victims are poor children - invisible to politicians - and because diarrhea itself makes people squeamish. As TIME pointed out in an international cover story three years ago, celebrities don't hold concerts for diarrhea. "Compared with malaria and AIDS, we are totally underfunded," says Fontaine. "This is truly a neglected disease...
...Real" Treatment Exactly how zinc stops diarrhea is not entirely clear. Olivier Fontaine, a diarrhea specialist for the WHO, believes that since the mineral is an essential ingredient in about 300 enzymes, boosting zinc levels strengthens the body's immunity, thus preventing diarrhea from turning deadly. A single course apparently also staves off further bouts of diarrhea for about three months - long enough to see a community through the deadly rainy seasons. Contrast that with ORT, which is extremely effective in replacing fluids and nutrients but offers no quick end to the diarrhea itself. ORT has another drawback: crucially...
...intense frustration of aid groups and government officials, only about 35% of families in diarrhea-stricken countries use ORT - less than half the WHO's target. Until zinc arrived in Sogola, only about one in 10 village residents used the sachets when they or their children became ill. That number has soared since Traoré added zinc tablets to the prescription. "Mothers don't see ORT as real treatment," says Eric Swedberg, senior director of child health and nutrition at Save the Children U.S. in Westport, Conn. "But when you add the zinc you really see the effects. This...
...Scientists first hit on zinc's effectiveness in the early 1990s, when researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore, Md., gave children in New Delhi a daily dose of syrup containing 20 mg of zinc. The rate of diarrhea dropped dramatically. "Nobody believed the results," Fontaine says. "No one had an explanation why zinc worked." Because ORT had already proved effective in the fight against diarrhea, though, aid organizations and researchers shifted their focus elsewhere - particularly to the disastrous spread of AIDS. The delay, the WHO's Fontaine says, cost the effort "at least...