Word: zinc
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...small programs have drawn little attention. But their impact has been dramatic. Zinc pills appear to halt diarrhea in its tracks. In Sogola, the packets of tablets provided by Save the Children are kept in a rickety but locked wooden closet in a mud building--the closest thing the town has to a pharmacy. There, Moussa Traoré, 48--a thin, wan man--dispenses drugs with a studied seriousness. Since last year, he has prescribed 20 mg of zinc daily for about two weeks to children suffering from diarrhea. Throw in oral rehydration therapy (ORT), which has been the main weapon...
Moussa Traoré (no relation to Aiseta Traoré) shows me the weathered school-exercise book in which he lists deaths. There were several diarrhea deaths in previous years--but none in 2008 or 2009. "Since zinc arrived, we have had no deaths from diarrhea," Traoré says. Cradling her 10-month-old son outside Traoré's dispensary, Maimouna Bakayogo, 32, says she panicked when her baby developed stomach pains, diarrhea and fever. "I was really afraid," she says. "Then I remembered Moussa saying there was zinc in the village. I went to get some from him, and within...
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...
...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...