Issue 41, published on December 2009.

Childhood Diarrhoea

Diarrhoea is second only to pneumonia as the cause of death in under-fi ve children. More than 1.5 million children in the world continue to die each year as a result of acute diarrhoea before they reach their fi fth birthday. In Cambodia sixteen children die on average every day due to this disease. And although the effectiveness of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) has been proved more that twenty years ago, and ORT and other components of clinical management of diarrhoea have reduced deaths from diarrhoea signifi cantly, only about one in fi ve children with diarrhoeal episodes worldwide, including Cambodia, currently receive ORT appropriately. Furthermore, use of appropriate home treatments to manage diarrhoea successfully and mothers’ knowledge about the importance of increased fluid intake and continued feeding during diarrhoea episodes is low as shown by data from the latest Cambodia Demographic Health Survey in 2005.

Diarrhoea is an easily treatable disease. Giving children the new ORS formula that reduces the need for intravenous fl uids and shortens the duration of the diarrhoea episode and giving zinc are inexpensive, safe and easy to use methods. They have the potential to dramatically lower diarrhoea morbidity and mortality. From now on zinc will be available in Cambodia and has to be included in the treatment of diarrhoea. In addition, there is now a vaccine available against rotavirus to prevent children from getting sick from one of the most common causes of watery diarrhoea. There are plans to introduce rotavirus vaccination in 2015 in Cambodia.

Prevention and management of diarrhoeal diseases is central to improving child survival in our country. Therefore, by dedicating this issue of Health Messenger to childhood diarrhoea we hope to make health workers realize that not only do they have a very important task to educate mothers about prevention and treatment of diarrhoea but by following the described practices they can improve their own practices as well, where necessary, and thus save the
lives of many children.

Professor Chhour Y Meng
Director
National Paediatric Hospital (NPH)
Ministry of Health