Coca cola fås overalt, hvorfor så ikke også forebygge dødelig diarre overalt?

The world’s second-biggest cause of child mortality, diarrhoea, kills about 1,5 million children every year.

Three-quarters of these deaths could be prevented with a simple course (kosttilskud) of oral rehydration salts (ORS) combined with zinc tablets, at a cost of just 50 US cent (ca. 2,75 DKR) per patient.

Yet, despite being heavily promoted by the World Health Organization since the 1970s, fewer than 40 percent of child diarrhoea cases in developing countries are treated with ORS.

That figure falls below one percent when the treatment includes zinc, which reduces not only the duration and severity of diarrhoeal episodes but also the likelihood of subsequent infections.

“The challenge is not what to do but how to deliver [ORS] at very high coverage,” Abdulai Tinorgah, who heads the UN Children’s Fund’s Child Survival and Development section in Nairobi, told IRIN.

Whereas blanket (direkte) interventions such as measles immunization, vitamin A supplementation, and bed-net distribution have been scaled up significantly over recent years, “those that have to do with case management have shown much less progress since 2000”, he said.

“Because these require a health system ready and able to respond to individuals when they need care, there are special challenges especially of access (adgang til), demand generation and logistics,” he explained.

Social marketing and private-sector initiatives, coupled with better distribution and public information, are among the ways ORS coverage could be increased, said Tinorgah.

Opportunity