Experts sound alarm on leading cause of severe diarrhea
SINGAPORE – International disease and pediatrics experts yesterday pressed the alarm button for rotavirus, the leading diarrheal disease that kills around 200,000 children every year worldwide.
While many people see diarrhea as a trivial disease, it is actually a serious condition that does not only cause the death of children aged below five years but can also lead to crippling complications, ROTA Council chairman Mathuram Santosham said.
“One in five children under the age of two suffers from an episode of moderate to severe diarrhea each year. These children are 8.5 times more likely to die within two months of having diarrheal disease,” he said during the “Common, Severe, Preventable: Rotavirus Disease and the Role of the Media,” a workshop for journalists from seven countries in Asia-Pacific.
The workshop was conducted on the sidelines of the 6th Asian Vaccine Conference (ASVAC 2017) held in this city-state on April 27-29. Stakeholders and advocates gathered here to find comprehensive solutions to the problems on rotavirus.
Rotavirus can damage the immune system so patients are eight times vulnerable to other infections. Those who have experienced several bouts of diarrhea but have survived the disease tend to suffer from stunting because the body’s nutrients are severely affected, Santosham noted.
But Santosham reported that there has been a “tremendous” development in the fight against diarrhea over the past 30 years due to the introduction of vaccines against rotavirus.
Today, two World Health Organization-prequalified, orally administered rotavirus vaccines are available.
Vaccination
Daniel Payne, a senior scientific advisor in the division of viral diseases at the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said they have been evaluating the performance of the vaccines for 10 years now since they were introduced in the market.
Baseline data show that diarrheal deaths in children have declined in countries that introduced the vaccines.
Rotavirus gastroenteritis can cause severe dehydration that lasts a long time.
“It gets out of control. The parents, the caretakers can't keep up with the rehydration of the child and typically these are very young children and they are not easy to convince to drink,” Payne said.
“It is considered a systemic disease and those children who have severe rotavirus… can have neurologic effects and other damaging and long-lasting complications,” he added.
Citing vaccine impact data, Payne said the diarrheal hospitalization in children under five had gone down in countries that adopted rotavirus vaccination. These include Ghana (65 percent), Kenya (83 percent), Rwanda (61-70 percent), Malawi (54 percent), Nicaragua (73 percent) and El Salvador (70-80 percent).
In Mexico where vaccines were introduced in May 2007, CDC had observed that child diarrheal deaths went down by 35 percent in the first year of the vaccination program.
Unlike the other diarrheal diseases, rotavirus cannot be eliminated by sanitation, safe water and hygiene. Oral rehydration solution is also less effective in addressing dehydration due to lengthy and intense diarrhea and vomiting that can last for many days, often outpacing rehydration efforts.
“Rotavirus is incredibly contagious, the virus is environmentally stable. It is present virtually anywhere in the human environment. Rotavirus vaccines work well in preventing severe illness. The vaccines work well in any country, regardless of economic status,” Payne said.