Diarrhea is still one of the most serious causes of death and disability worldwide. Despite significant improvements in prevention and treatment efforts over the past few decades, it remains the second biggest killer of children in the world.
Nearly 30% of child deaths around the world could be prevented using tools we already have. That we fail to prevent these deaths is one of the single largest failures of humanity.
Zinc helps children recover from diarrhea more quickly and the ORS helps replenish lost fluids. This can mean less time away from work for parents during a crucial income-earning time and less time missed at school for children.
A few weeks ago we travelled together to Senegal in West Africa to visit rural health posts and to meet with community leaders, health workers and mothers who will be on the front lines of what many are calling the next revolution in child survival.
Nigeria is home to one out of every eight child deaths worldwide, and the Decade of Vaccines Economics projects 90 percent vaccine coverage can save 600,000 lives and $17 billion in Nigeria over the next 10 years.
Decisions around vaccine container size and type -- whether single-dose vial, multi-dose container or pre-filled syringe -- have important implications for a variety of stakeholders.
In the United States, we can practically start planning our kids' birthdays from the day they come home from the hospital; deaths in childhood are quite rare. In Ghana, though, you can't take a child's fifth birthday for granted.
Likewise, as one of only three remaining countries in the world with endemic polio transmission, they have recently ramped up efforts to eradicate polio from the country, and thereby, help rid it from the entire world.
For someone who has worked diligently for over a decade to accelerate access to new life-saving pneumonia vaccines, announcements like this week's make it all seem worth it.
LONDON -- A global health group says it will donate just over $1 billion to immunize children in 37 countries from life-threatening diseases.
The Glo...
One-sixth of the world's population does not have access to a glass of clean drinking water. If the United States suffered this thirsty fate, 52 million Americans would be without water.
AUSTIN, Texas -- An Austin woman who authorities say was caught on tape smearing human feces on her then-3-year-old daughter's IV catheter was sentenc...
Cholera and the bigger problem are cousins. Both are forms of diarrhea. But the more common forms of diarrhea are far more widespread and far more deadly.
Some would argue that the faces that motivated President George W. Bush's unparalleled investment in AIDS prevention, treatment, and care were the fac...
Though Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is among the most common medical problems in the country, it's not a disease you're likely to find celebrities speaking out for.
I fear this will become a major disaster. Haitians have no natural immunity to cholera. The incubation period of up to five days lets seemingly healthy but actually infected people travel and spread the disease. This could involve the entire country. I'm praying for a miracle.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The floods tearing through Pakistan's breadbasket have further weakened this already unstable country, inflicting more economic...
Sanitation is a basic need that could enable a new destiny for billions of people and it is time to apply the same degree of innovation and ingenuity to this problem that has been brought to bear in other fields.
According to freelance journalist Rose George, a child dies from diarrhea -- usually brought on by fecal-contaminated food or water -- every 15 seconds. But human waste can be used to good purpose.