Illustration by Bloomberg View Spoonful of Zinc Can Save
Countless Developing-World Kids Addressing the health needs of
the world’s most vulnerable people is often a costly and
complicated undertaking. But on rare occasions, if the will is
sufficient, it can be simple. So it is with the No. 2 cause of
death among children in low-income countries: diarrhea. Weak
health and poor nutrition can make these children especially
susceptible to deadly dehydration. Among those less than 5 years
old, 1.5 million die from the condition annually, mostly in
Africa and South Asia. India, Nigeria and the Democratic
Republic of Congo have the highest numbers. In the past three
decades, childhood diarrhea deaths have been greatly reduced,
mainly through huge efforts to introduce an elementary
treatment. Called oral rehydration salts (ORS), this mix of five
basic ingredients that dissolves in water has been called the
most important medical advance of the 20th century. The
treatment was improved upon in 2004, when the World Hea