The four-year project, the results of which are now being
piloted in four hospitals in India, will offer a means of
identifying the two most deadly forms of the disease quickly,
cheaply and with little training necessary for practitioners.
The implications for improving children's health could be
enormous. Diarrhoea is a major killer in developing countries.
World Health Organisation statistics indicate that more than 2
million people die each year from the effects of diarrhoea, most
of them children under five years old. Diarrhoea is caused by a
range of bacterial, viral and parasitic organisms, and is
usually spread by contaminated water and poor sanitation. Two
particular bacteria , enteropathogenic E.coli (EPEC), which
causes a persistent infection lasting more than 14 days, and
Shigella, the cause of dysentery - are the most deadly in terms
of killing children. They cause only 20% of cases of diarrhoea
but result in 60% of deaths. It is these two killers - EPEC and
Shigella - that the Leicester-led proje