New drug reduces infant deaths from diarrhea by 60 percent

A couple of new studies find that the drug Rotarix can reduce deaths amongst babies with diarrhea. The studies have raised hopes throughout Africa and other under-developed countries on improving survival rates from diarrhea. One of the studies in the New England Journal of Medicine found a 61 percent reduction in deaths for infants using the Rotarix vaccine.

From University World News, reporter Munyaradzi Makoni gives us more detail on the study results.

The research, published in December in the New England Journal of Medicine, reported on a clinical trial involving nearly 5,000 infants from high mortality, low-income settings in South Africa and Malawi. Its aim was to examine the efficiency of the vaccine among infants during the first year of life.

Rotavirus causes severe diarrhoea in children under the age of five in both developed and developing countries, and especially in Africa.

"The priority is to ensure that children in Africa, who account for 40% of the 530,000 deaths that occur annually from rotavirus, gain access to this life-saving vaccine," Professor Shabir Madhi, the clinical trial study author and a professor of vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) told University World News.

Sub-Saharan Africa has around 18% of the world's under-five population. "The expeditious introduction of rotavirus vaccine in Sub-Saharan African countries would therefore result in significant inroads being made in reducing under-five deaths and assisting countries in achieving the UN millennium developmental goal of reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds compared to 1990 levels," he said.

Madhi said that while progress in combating the illness was being made in South Africa, where the vaccine became available in the public immunization programme in 2009, the same is not true in other African countries.

Who is to blame for high infant death rate in Sierra Leone

The country of Sierra Leone has the second highest child mortality rate in the world. The medical professionals in the country blame the high death rate on midwifes or traditional birth attendants.

The health professionals say that midwifes do not have the proper training if pregnancies get complicated. However, the midwifes way that they are needed to reach remote villages where there is no access to medicine.

From the Voice of America, writer Chinedu Offor frames the debate in this story.

Sierra Leone has the second highest child mortality rate in the world, according to a recent survey by UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO). The report found that more than one out of four children die before their fifth birthday.

The death rate among newborns in Sierra Leone is above the average for Africa, at 56 per 1,000 live births, says the WHO.

Doctors in government hospitals blame traditional birth attendants (TBAs) for the high death rate. They’re blamed for not being able to handle problem births, including hemorrhaging.

But the attendants say they have a major role to play, especially in a country where poverty, poor transportation and cultural practices keep many women from going to the hospital.

Dr. Ibrahim Thorlie is the chief medical officer of the Princess Christian Maternity and Child Health clinic in East End, Freetown. .

“In my own opinion, the TBAs have no role to play in the reduction of maternal mortality because they deal with the normal case that does not cause maternal mortality. Therefore, we should stop training them.”

A traditional birth attendant supervisor, Mohammed Masere, disagrees. He says Dr. Thorlie’s views are extreme.

“At (the) primary healthcare level, TBAs have a role to play because they are closer to the people in the community. They do deliveries, cases that are unable to reach the health facilities on time.”

Television personality Woteh Camera was delivered by a TBA, and she agrees. With most of the population living in rural areas and unable to access hospital services, she says, traditional birth attendants remain relevant. But they should be trained in modern methods of delivery, she adds.

“Though they are not well trained, I think they are doing a good job, as most people will say, [in view of the fact] that we don’t have qualified people in our rural areas, most especially the remote villages where…the roads are bad and it (the clinic or hospital) is far.”

Global poverty distribution - infant mortality as poverty indicator

from the United Nations Environment Programme