BACKGROUND More than 500 000 young children die from dehydration caused by severe diarrhea each year, globally. Although routine use of oral rehydration solution (ORS) could prevent almost all of these deaths, ORS utilization remains low in many low-income countries. Previous research has suggested that misperceptions among caregivers may be an obstacle to wider use of ORS. METHODS To better ...

Sugar-based oral rehydration therapy (ORT) for diarrhoea is promoted in many countries of the world. One programme in Bangladesh has instructed more than 13 million mothers in the preparation of a sugar-salt solution in the home; despite very high rates of correct mixing and knowledge, subsequent application was found in only some 20% of all diarrhoea episodes. Since rice is far more available ...

The efficacy of oral rehydration solution without bicarbonate was compared with World Health Organisation oral rehydration solution in 98 young children in a double blind and randomised clinical trial. These children had varying degrees of dehydration and acidosis caused by acute watery diarrhoea. The mean serum bicarbonate concentration on admission was 13.3 mmol(mEq)/1 in the former and 13.1 ...

The packing and composition of ORS has undergone a change since its introduction. In India, some companies are manufacturing smaller pouches (4.2 g) to be dissolved in 200 ml of water. Therefore, out of confusion some prescribers routinely advise the patients to dissolve the standard formulation ORS pouch (21 g) in a glass (200 ml) of water. Two cases are discussed. First patient developed salt...

BACKGROUND Racecadotril is an antidiarrhoeal drug with intestinal antisecretory mechanism of action. AIM To assess racecadotril efficacy as an adjunct to oral rehydration solution, against oral rehydration solution alone or with placebo in childhood acute gastroenteritis. METHODS Individual patient data meta-analysis following multilevel mixed models testing the significance of the treatmen...

Objective To perform cost utility (CU) and budget impact (BI) analyses augmented by scenario analyses of critical model structure components to evaluate racecadotril as adjuvant to oral rehydration solution (ORS) for children under 5 years with acute diarrhea in Malaysia. Methods A CU model was adapted to evaluate racecadotril plus ORS vs ORS alone for acute diarrhea in children younger than ...

This article considers ethnomedical knowledge and practices among parents related to contraction of acute gastroenteritis among children in Peshawar, Pakistan. Research methods included analysis of the Emergency Pediatric Services' admission register, a structured interview administered to 47 parents of patients seen in the Khyber Medical College Teaching Hospital, semi-structured interviews of...