Word: ort
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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 been the main treatment--in many places the only one--since the early 1970s, when U.N. officials first distributed sachets of sugar and salt to refugees in South Asia in an attempt to reduce cholera deaths. Today, rehydration salts mixed with clean water are given to millions of poor people across Africa and Asia. It works: the glucose in the water slows the exit of fluids from the body, allowing electrolytes to be absorbed through the intestinal walls and thus halting potentially deadly dehydration...
...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 1 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 is quite...
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 gave children in New Delhi a daily dose of syrup containing 20 mg of zinc. The rate of diarrhea dropped dramatically. 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 10 years...
...several African governments are now looking at zinc programs. The treatment is already stirring interest among rich-country donors and drug companies: about 20 firms in countries from France to India have begun manufacturing zinc tablets during the past few years. "The private sector was never really interested in ORT," Fontaine says. "But zinc has totally taken off. It looks like real medicine and is not given out for free...