PARIS: Researchers in the United States say they have identified a drug that is effective against rotavirus, a diarrhea-inducing bug that kills around half a million children a year. They tested nitazoxanide, a drug initially formulated to combat a different intestinal microbe, among 50 children admitted to Cairo University Children s Hospital in Egypt. The group was randomly given either nitazoxanide or a harmless placebo twice a day for three days. Children in the placebo group took 75 hours of recover; in the nitazoxanide group, this took 31 hours. Both groups were treated with the conventional response of oral rehydration and salts. Nitazoxanide, made by Romark Laboratories and commercialized under the brand name of Alinia, was licensed in 2002 against infection by two kinds of protozoa parasites, Cryptosporidium parvum and Giardia lamblia. The researchers, led by Romark s Jean-Francois Rossignol, tested nitazoxanide on rotavirus-infected cells of monkey kidneys to see whether it worked. Rotavirus is wheel-shaped virus that can be transmitted through water or food. It is the commonest cause of severe dehydrating diarrhea and gastro-enteritis in young children worldwide. In developed countries, around one in 40 children younger than five years are hospitalized every year because of rotavirus diarrhea. The medical and social cost in the United States alone is put at more than $1 billion annually. Two rotavirus vaccines, RotaTeq (made by Merck of the United States) and Rotarix (by Britain s GlaxoSmithKline), have undergone successful tests on tens of thousands of children, according to studies published in January. The new study is published online by The Lancet (www.thelancet.com), the British journal of medicine. AFP
New treatment puts children's diarrhea on the run
