Diarrhea doesn’t make headlines. Nor does pneumonia. AIDS and malaria tend to get most of the attention.
Vaccine routinely given to children in the U.S. and Europe is expected to reach 44 poorer countries by 2015 through the GAVI Alliance.
"Every child in the United States gets it, even though they have access to clean water and hygiene," said John Wecker, of the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, a Seattle-based nonprofit that is part of the vaccine alliance. "The only effective way to prevent these deaths is through vaccination."
Diarrhea diseases received more attention in the 1980s and 1990s, he said, but interest has waned or been diverted elsewhere, allowing them to creep back.
"How did the leading killers end up at the bottom of the global health agenda? I don’t know," Wecker said at a recent GAVI meeting in Hanoi. "We’ve got the tools. We’re not looking for the next technological breakthrough. It’s here now and it’s not being used."
Death can often be prevented by giving children fluid replacement, a simple recipe of salt and sugar mixed with clean water to help ward off dehydration. Yet 60 percent of children with diarrhea never receive the concoction, according to a WHO and UNICEF report released last month.
"It is so preventable," said Dr. Richard Cash, a HarvardUniversity expert who helped develop the oral rehydration therapy 40 years ago. "Preventing the deaths is at the very least what we should be striving for."
Source: Africa World News
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