A treatment in which a salt and sugar based solution taken by mouth replaces the fluid and electrolytes lost in diarrheal diseases such as cholera. The solution, prepackaged as oral rehydration salts or mixed at home from sugar, salt and clean water, is cheap, effective and easy to administer, and reverses dehydration in more than 90 percent of patients with acute diarrhea. The research behind it began in 1960 in Dhaka, and its use during the 1971 cholera outbreak among refugees of the Indo Pakistan conflict cut the fatality rate from 30 percent to 3.6 percent after intravenous saline ran short. Since the World Health Organization adopted it in 1978 as its primary means of fighting diarrhea, annual deaths among children under 5 from acute diarrhea have fallen from 5 million to fewer than 1 million.
Facts
Origin YearThe year the research program that produced the therapy began, at the Cholera Research Laboratory in Dhaka; large scale use followed in the 1971 cholera outbreak. Practice ClassPublic health, disease treatment 1 Classification
Practice ClassConventional / Biomedical Practice 1 Connections
Associated With
The World Health Organization adopted the therapy in 1978 as its primary means of fighting diarrheal disease.
Source Encyclopedia Britannica
In Branch
Source Encyclopedia Britannica
Sources
1. Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.Oral rehydration therapy
Typically used in the treatment of diarrheal diseases such as cholera, oral rehydration salts consist of a measured mixture of glucose, sodium chloride, potassium chloride, and trisodium citrate that helps the body replace lost fluid and salts.
Program classification, entity description sentence
A treatment in which a salt and sugar based solution taken by mouth replaces the fluid and electrolytes lost in diarrheal diseases such as cholera.
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