Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea lasting a few days. Vomiting and muscle cramps may also occur. Diarrhea can be so severe that it leads within hours to severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. This may result in sunken eyes, cold skin, decreased skin elasticity, and wrinkling of the hands and feet. Dehydration can cause the skin to turn bluish. Symptoms start two hours to five days after exposure.
Gastroenteritis, also known as infectious diarrhea or simply as gastro, is an inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract including the stomach and intestine. Symptoms may include diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Fever, lack of energy, and dehydration may also occur. This typically lasts less than two weeks. Although it is not related to influenza, in the U.S. it is sometimes called the "stomach flu".
BRAC is an international development Organisation based in Bangladesh. In order to receive foreign donations, BRAC was subsequently registered under the NGO Affairs Bureau of the Government of Bangladesh. BRAC is the largest non-governmental development Organisation in the world, in terms of number of employees as of September 2016. Established by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in 1972 after the independence of Bangladesh, BRAC is present in all 64 districts of Bangladesh as well as 16 other countries in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
Oral rehydration therapy (ORT) is a type of fluid replacement used to prevent and treat dehydration, especially due to diarrhea. It involves drinking water with modest amounts of sugar and salts, specifically sodium and potassium. Oral rehydration therapy can also be given by a nasogastric tube. Therapy should routinely include the use of zinc supplements. Use of oral rehydration therapy has been estimated to decrease the risk of death from diarrhea by up to 93%.
Albany Medical College (AMC) is a private medical school in Albany, New York. It was founded in 1839 by Alden March and James H. Armsby and is one of the oldest medical schools in the nation. The college is part of the Albany Medical Center, which includes the Albany Medical Center Hospital. Along with Albany College of Pharmacy, Albany Law School, the Dudley Observatory, and Union College, it is one of the constituent entities of Union University.
ICDDR,B is an international health research organisation located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Dedicated to saving lives through research and treatment, ICDDR,B addresses some of the most critical health concerns facing the world today, ranging from improving neonatal survival to HIV/AIDS. In collaboration with academic and research institutions over the world, ICDDR,B conducts research, training and extension activities, as well as programme-based activities, to develop and share knowledge for global lifesaving solutions.
Dilip Mahalanabis was an Indian paediatrician known for pioneering the use of oral rehydration therapy to treat diarrhoeal diseases. Mahalanabis had begun researching oral rehydration therapy in 1966 as a research investigator for the Johns Hopkins University International Center for Medical Research and Training in Calcutta, India. During the Bangladeshi war for independence, he led the effort by the Johns Hopkins Center that demonstrated the dramatic life-saving effectiveness of oral rehydration therapy when cholera broke out in 1971 among refugees from East Bengal who had sought asylum in West Bengal. The simple, inexpensive Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) gained acceptance, and was later hailed as one of the most important medical advances of the 20th century.
Daniel Isaac Wikler is an American public health educator, philosopher, and medical ethicist. He is currently the Mary B. Saltonstall Professor of Population Ethics and Professor of Ethics and Population Health in the Department of Global Health and Population of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. He is Director and a core faculty member in the Harvard Program in Ethics and Health (PEH). His current research interests are ethical issues in population and international health, including the allocation of health resources, health research involving human subjects, organ transplant ethics, and ethical dilemmas arising in public health practice, and he teaches several courses each year. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution.
Hemendra Nath Chatterjee was an Indian scientist from West Bengal known for the earliest publication of a formula for Orally Rehydrated Saline (ORS) for diarrhea management in 1952. Although his results were published in The Lancet, they didn't receive much recognition from Western scientists until later. Some argue this was for cultural reasons as his treatment protocol included traditional medicine, and also because the scientific underpinnings of ORS weren't well understood. However, some argue he shouldn't be given credit for its invention at all, as some of his results contradict the results of modern studies, and argue his success was likely due to using only mildly ill patients.
The Pollin Prize for Pediatric Research was an annual award given to physicians who contributed important advances to the field of pediatrics, and was the only existing international pediatric award. The prize was created in 2002 by Irene and Abe Pollin, and funded by the Linda and Kenneth Pollin Foundation. It was administered by the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and as of 2003, Dr. Rudolph Leibel was chairman of the selection panel.
Robert Kellogg Crane was an American biochemist best known for his discovery of sodium–glucose cotransport.
David R. Nalin is an American physiologist, and Pollin Prize for Pediatric Research and Prince Mahidol Award, a.k.a. Mahidol Medal winner. Nalin had the key insight that oral rehydration therapy (ORT) would work if the volume of solution patients drank matched the volume of their fluid losses, and that this would drastically reduce or completely replace the only current treatment for cholera, intravenous therapy. Nalin led the trials that first demonstrated ORT works, both in cholera patients, and more significantly, also in other dehydrating diarrhea illnesses. Nalin's discoveries have been estimated to have saved over 50 million lives worldwide.
Robert Allan Phillips MD was a research scientist whose research contributed to a transformation in the treatment of cholera.
The management of dehydration typically involves the use of oral rehydration solution (ORS). Standard home solutions such as salted rice water, salted yogurt drinks, vegetable and chicken soups with salt can be given. Home solutions such as water in which cereal has been cooked, unsalted soup, green coconut water, weak tea (unsweetened), and unsweetened fresh fruit juices can have from half a teaspoon to full teaspoon of salt added per liter. Clean plain water can also be one of several fluids given. There are commercial solutions such as Pedialyte, and relief agencies such as UNICEF widely distribute packets of salts and sugar. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes a homemade ORS with one liter water with one teaspoon salt and six teaspoons sugar added. The WHO; however, does not generally recommend homemade solutions as how to make them is easily forgotten. Rehydration Project recommends adding the same amount of sugar but only one-half a teaspoon of salt, stating that this more dilute approach is less risky with very little loss of effectiveness. Both agree that drinks with too much sugar or salt can make dehydration worse.
Norbert Hirschhorn is an Austrian-born American public health physician. He was one of the inventors and developers of the life-saving method called oral rehydration therapy for adults and children suffering fluid loss from cholera and other infectious diarrheal illnesses. It is estimated that his work has saved around 50 million people suffering from dehydration.
Matlab was an upazila of the Chandpur District of the Chittagong Division, Bangladesh. In 2000, the administrative area was subdivided into Matlab Dakshin Upazila and Matlab Uttar Upazila.
DripDrop is an oral rehydration solution company, based in Oakland, CA. Eduardo Dolhun founded the company in 2008 and began manufacturing in 2010. In practice, DripDrop ORS is used as a part of oral rehydration therapy.
John Briscoe was a South African-born environmental engineer who was Visiting Professor of the Practice of Environmental Health in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard School of Public Health. He was known as "Mr. Water" to environmental economists. At Harvard, Briscoe also held appointments at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) as Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Environmental Engineering, and at the Harvard Kennedy School. His career focused on efforts on the developing world to successfully manage and preserve water as a precious resource. In early 2014, he received the Stockholm Water Prize - the “Nobel Prize of Water" - for "unparalleled contributions to global and local management of water - contributions covering vast thematic, geographic, and institutional environments-that have improved the lives and livelihoods of millions of people worldwide.”
Stanley G. Schultz was an American physician and scientist whose work led to the development of oral rehydration therapy. He held the Fondren Family Chair in Cellular Signaling and the H. Wayne Hightower Distinguished Professorship in the Medical Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) before becoming the center's medical school dean.
The child survival revolution was an effort started by UNICEF to reduce child mortality in the developing world. The effort lasted from 1982 to the 1990s, and generally coincides with James P. Grant's tenure as executive director of UNICEF (1980–1995). The child survival revolution included various programs and conferences, including the World Summit for Children in 1990.
