Baby with bad diarrhoea? Go to hospital immediately

… Don’t wait, give coconut water ‘every six hours’

Coconut water given “every six hours” will “stop frequent stooling, diarrhoea and dysentery” in infants and small children.

That’s the claim in a dangerous message posted on “The Professor”, a Facebook page run from Nigeria.

The message says infants up to six months old should be given “two spoonfuls of the coconut water every six hours”, and babies aged six to 12 months “four table spoonfuls”. One-year-olds are to get a quarter of a “glass cup”, and two-year-olds a half of this measure, every six hours.

Diarrhoea life-threatening for babies

Diarrhoea is loose and runny poo, passed more often than usual. Some of its causes in babies include viral and parasitic infections, food poisoning and allergies. Acute diarrhoea leads to dehydration and can be life-threatening for

An arthritis drug does not significantly increase a severe COVID-19 patient’s chance of survival, a new study finds.

Researchers at 39 U.S. and European hospitals investigated the drug, called canakinumab, and found a difference of just three percent in rates of survival without a ventilator between those patients who were and weren’t treated with the medication.

Overall survival and recovery rates were also similar between those patients who did and didn’t receive canakinumab.

The drug is a type of monoclonal antibody - it relies on synthetically made immune system particles.

While some monoclonal antibodies have been useful in treating COVID-19 patients, not all treatments are successful, and the team says more research is needed in this area.

As researchers have sought to find treatments that help save Covid patients’ lives, one common strategy has been repurposing drugs used babies and small children.

Diarrhoea is a preventable and treatable disease, the World Health Organization says, but is still a leading cause of death in children under the age of five.

Dysentery is one of the infections that can cause diarrhoea. Blood and mucus will show in the runny poo of a baby with dysentery.

If your baby has bad diarrhoea – caused by dysentery or something else – coconut water won’t cure it. Coconut water could prevent severe dehydration in your baby overnight, while you wait for healthcare facilities to open.

But as soon as you can, take your baby to a hospital or clinic.

Oral rehydration salts and professional care

Emmanuel Ekanem, a professor of paediatrics at the University of Calabar in southern Nigeria, told Africa Check that coconut water did not cure diarrhoea or against other diseases.

For example, the antiviral drug remdesivir was first developed to treat hepatitis C. It’s now one of the most-used treatments for hospitalized Covid treatments.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given Emergency Use Authorization to several monoclonal antibody treatments that target Covid.

Researchers are now investigating other, similar treatments - including canakinumab, a monoclonal antibody treatment commonly used to treat a childhood arthritis condition.

The researchers tested this arthritis drug through a randomized, double-blind, placebo control trial - meaning that patients were randomly assigned to receive the drug or a placebo without knowing which they got.

Within that first month, patients in the drug and placebo groups had similar chances of survival.

By the end of the study month, 80 patients in the canakinumab group dysentery.

He said parents should take their babies to a hospital immediately.

“The treatment for the dehydration caused by diarrhoea is giving the patient fluids,” Ekanem said.

“The best fluid to give is an oral rehydration salts solution – known as ORS. For malnourished children who have diarrhoea we give them rehydration solution for malnutrition.”

He added: “For dysentery, doctors add antimicrobial agents. But we do not advise people to do this at home.”

Ekanem said coconut water could replace fluids lost to diarrhoea. But ORS would have a better result. Coconut water does not contain enough sodium. Symptoms of dehydration “Babies, children and the elderly are more at risk of dehydration,” says the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

These are the symptoms of dehydration in babies, according to the NHS:

· always sleepy or drowsy

· fast breathing

· few or no tears when they cry · a soft spot on their head that sinks inwards (a sunken fontanelle)

· a dry mouth

· a dark yellow pee, or no pee in the last 12 hours

· cold and hands and feet

Dehydration in babies is dangerous. If your baby has these symptoms, take them to a clinic or hospital as soon as you can.

blotchy-looking (35.2 percent) had no evidence of infection - the same was true for 68 patients of the placebo group (30.4 percent). Similar numbers of both groups went home from the hospital.

The researchers concluded that this monoclonal antibody didn’t significantly improve patients’ chances of survival.

Why did this trial not find that canakinumab helped Covid patients when other monoclonal antibodies have received FDA approval?

It’s possible that other treatments the patients received may have interfered with results.

Additionally, experts at the National Institutes of Health recommend that, if a patient is to receive monoclonal antibody treatment, it should start as soon as that patient tests positive for Covid.

In future research on monoclonal antibody treatments, more rigidly standardized trials may help researchers see conclusive results.