New global study for cause,prevention and treatment of Diarrhoea in children

Prof Dr,DRAM,HIV /AIDS,HEPATITIS ,SEX DISEASES & WEAKNESS expert,New Delhi,India, +917838059592

A new international study published today in The Lancet provides the clearest picture yet of the impact and most common cause,prevention and treatment  of diarrheal diseases killing 8,00,000 children , the second leading killer of young children globally, after pneumonia.The Global Enteric Multicenter Study (GEMS) is the largest study ever conducted on diarrheal diseases in developing countries, enrolling more than 20,000 children from seven sites across Asia and Africa.

        GEMS, coordinated by the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Center for Vaccine Development, confirmed rotavirus – for which a vaccine already exists – as the leading cause of diarrheal disease among infants and identified other top causes for which additional research is urgently needed. GEMS found that approximately one in five children under the age of two suffer from moderate-to-severe diarrhea (MSD) each year, which increased children’s risk of death 8.5-fold and led to stunted growth over a two-month follow-up period.

                  GEMS, coordinated by the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Center for Vaccine Development, was a case-control study conducted at seven diverse, high-burden sites in Asia and Africa: The Gambia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. The study enrolled 22,568 children under five years of age, a sample size that is large enough to provide comprehensive data on the causes, incidence and impact of the range of diarrheal diseases affecting children around the world.

Despite many causes, GEMS found that targeting just four pathogens could prevent the majority of MSD cases. Expanding access to vaccines for rotavirus, the leading cause of MSD among infants at every site, could save hundreds of thousands of lives. Likewise, GEMS data suggests that accelerating research on vaccines, treatments and diagnostics for the three other leading pathogens – Shigella, Cryptosporidium and ST-ETEC, a type of E. coli – could have a similar impact. Prior to GEMS,  Cryptosporidium was not considered a major cause of diarrheal disease and as a result there is currently little research on this pathogen underway.

“The GEMS findings help set priorities for investments that could greatly reduce the burden of childhood diarrheal diseases,” said Dr. Thomas Brewer, deputy director of the Enteric & Diarrheal Diseases team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which funded the study. “Vaccines and treatments available today can save thousands of children right now but targeted research to develop new tools to combat severe diarrhea could save many more lives in the future.”