Child killer under attack

Press, 9 July 1983, Page 17

Child killer under attack

An international research centre in Bangladesh is reporting a new advance in the treatment of diarrhoea — an illness that kills five million children a year. Dr William Greenough, director of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh, says doctors are testing a new form of "oral rehydration therapy.” It is the loss of body fluids that kills.

Already, the centre has developed a way for mothers to help by giving the victims, mainly children, a home-made solution of water, sugar, and salt to drink. The new form of therapy involves the use of rice and other cereals which not only bring about the replacement of crucial body fluids and salts lost during severe bouts of diarrhoea, but also improve the nutrition of the victims. The Bangladesh treatment is also helpful to patients with A.I.D.S. (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) who are infected by internal parasites. Dr Greenough told reporters at the United Nations that “within two hours” of returning to the United States, the first telephone call he received was from a Boston doctor treating an A.I.D.S. patient. The patient has a severe form of parasitic diarrhoea called cryptosporidiosis, an illness which is causing concern in the United States. It has -Occurred in about two dozen A.I.D.S. cases and doctors have not

been able to find a cure. The Boston patient, a homosexual, is receiving a wide range of therapy, including opium — a constipating agent — as well as a mixture of baby’s rice cereal and bananas which he calls his “Bangladesh diet.” A.I.D.S. specialists are trying to control the Boston patient’s loss of fluid with exactly the same primitive diet given to those sufferers of famine and dysentry in Bangladesh. Dr Greenough says that the patient had been receiving only intravenous fluids and had lacked proper nutrition. At once he suggested the patient receive what he terms “the rice solutions.” Dr Greenough explained that the natural starch in cereals, which yields sugar during the digestive process, is better to drink than sugar-water because it is less likely to induce vomiting. He claims Bangladesh is “the most advanced country” in the development and application of oral rehydration therapy, and its ideas are being taken up around the world. Many of the victims of diarrhoeal diseases in the least developed countries live in poor rural areas with bad sanitation and bacteria-laden water. Often they are unable to reach hospitals in time to save their lives. Copyright — London Observer Service.