How Much Has ORT Reduced Child Mortality?

[ P. 1 - 3 ] Authors: Nathaniel F. Pierce In 1979 oral rehydration therapy (ORT) using oral rehydration salts (ORS) solution became the cornerstone of the global effort, initiated by WHO, to reduce deaths of young children from diarrhoea, then estimated at 4.6 million annually (1). National programmes to control diarrhoeal diseases (CDD) were eventually developed in more than 110 countries. These gave priority to ensuring an adequate supply of ORS packets and to teaching health workers and mothers how to treat or prevent dehydration at home using ORS solution, sugar-salt solution, and various home fluids. The programmes also promoted other effective measures for preventing or treating diarrhoea. The effects of this effort on indicators of programme implementation, and on diarrhoea morbidity and mortality, were monitored throughout the 1980s and 1990s by periodic surveys, including the WHO Household Survey, the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) supported by USAID, and UNICEF s ...