Word: treatments
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...health-care crisis is that we're spending way more than any other country, and we're getting results that are no better and sometimes worse. And the good news, for reformers at least, is that numerous studies have shown that the system is riddled with wasteful and unnecessary treatment, which means there's plenty of fat to cut; Orszag has suggested that costs could be reduced by as much as 30% without any reduction in the quality of care...
...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...
...been the main treatment - in many places the only treatment - 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 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. (See pictures of the politics of water in Central Asia...
...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 is quite dramatic...
...Hope Zinc could change that. Earlier this year, pilot zinc-treatment programs began in parts of Ethiopia and Tanzania, and 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." (See pictures of Ethiopia's harvest of hunger...