Acute Diarrhea in Children Aged Under Two: Therapeutic Strategiesin Tertiary Care Settings

Acute diarrhea is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children under five in India, particularly affecting those belonging to the age-range 6 months to 2 years. While antimicrobials are commonly used for treating acute diarrhea, the World Health Organization (WHO)advocates their redundancyin most cases, except for specific bacterial infections. Instead, zinc supplementation along with low osmolarity ORS has been recommended for treating acute diarrhea.

The goal of a newstudy was to assess the use of antibiotics and zinc in children under 2 years suffering from acute diarrhea by analyzing the average use and hospital stay.

This observational study included 76 patients admitted to the Pediatric Department of Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences over six months. Participants enrolled were those suffering from acute diarrhea and moderate dehydration – as defined by the WHO. Excluded were patients with other diseases, bloody diarrhea, or serious illness. Data were collected from the Pediatric ward and analyzed using GraphPad software.

Overall, 32.89%of patients received only antimicrobials, 40.79% received only zinc, and 14.47%received both. There was no statistically significant difference in hospital stay for culture-negative acute diarrhea cases treated with zinc and antimicrobials, but a significant difference was noted for culture-positive cases.For culture-negative acute diarrheal cases, zinc was predominantly used, and hospital stay was not significantly affected by the addition of antimicrobials.

Hence, it was inferred that uncomplicated acute diarrhea can be effectively treated with zinc alone. Zinc can reduce hospital stayin both culture-positive and culture-negative moderate diarrhea cases.

Source: Das M, Kale RS, Jain M. Biomedical and Pharmacology Journal. 2024 Jun 6;17(2).