New treatment puts children's diarrhoea on the run
Researchers in the United States say they have identified a drug that is effective against rotavirus, a diarrhoea-inducing bug that kills around half a million children a year.
They tested nitazoxanide -- a drug initially formulated to combat a different intestinal microbe -- among 50 children admitted to Cairo University Children's Hospital in Egypt.
The group were randomly given either nitazoxanide or a harmless lookalike, a placebo, twice a day for three days.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Children in the placebo group took 75 hours of recover; in the nitazoxanide group, this took 31 hours. Both groups were treated with the conventional response of oral rehydration and salts.
Nitazoxanide, made by Romark Laboratories and commercialised under the brand name of Alinia, was licensed in 2002 against infection by two kinds of protozoa parasites -- Cryptosporidium parvum and Giardia lamblia.
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