Gates Foundation to Battle Diarrhea Among Children

To help save the estimated two million children who die each year from severe diarrhea, the Gates Foundation will award $46-million to develop an anti-diarrhea drug, reports The San Francisco Chronicle.

OneWorld Health, a nonprofit drug company in San Francisco, will administer the grants, which will be distributed to scientists in the United States, England, and Bangladesh for six and a half years of preclinical work and a limited number of human trials.

OneWorld said the new drug was likely to be mixed with fluid medications already distributed to children in the third world, as opposed to being delivered as a separate pill or serum. The sought-after drug would inhibit a protein in the walls of the intestines.

Medical advocates welcomed the grant, which is the Gates Foundation’s largest yet to fight infectious diseases. But they warned that curing diarrhea would require stronger public-health measures as well, such as improving drinking water.