Enteric and Diarrheal Disease

James Nataro of the University of Virginia in the U.S. is developing new mouse models of environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) to explore how enteric pathogens commonly found among children in developing countries can affect intestinal function and cause growth retardation. In Phase I, they developed mouse models for five of the common pathogens and found that, as in humans, malnutrition (protein or zinc deficiency) enhanced the severity of infection, associated growth retardation, or the presence of intestinal inflammation.

Diarrhea is the second leading cause of death among children worldwide. Treating water before it is consumed can reduce the diarrhea risk by 42%. In low-resource settings, boiling water is often the only method used, because many other effective household water treatment methods remain unfeasible due to cost, lack of availability and cultural barriers. This bold idea will test a low-cost and reusable water pasteurization indicator in the Peruvian Amazon, a region where childhood diarrhea is rampant and people rely on surface water for drinking.

This project in the Philippines is developing a biosensor system for the rapid and accurate identification of Cryptosporidium microbes in water, a cause of diarrhea that leads to half of all deaths of children under five. Working closely with the Puerto Princesa Water District, provincial health offices and non-profit organizations, the project will help oversee the manufacture and distribution of the Cryptosporidium screening systems, and conduct training to ensure their effective deployment, with aims of introducing the systems in other Asian countries.

Household-level water treatment reduces diarrhoeal disease risk by 36% (compared to 17% for water source interventions). Locally-made ceramic water filters are affordable and effective for removing bacteria but not viruses.  An innovative way of dosing ceramic filter pots with chlorine developed by this project will remove the microbial pathogens and reduce diarrhoeal disease.

In humanitarian emergencies, a lack of access to adequate sanitation is compounded by crowded, unhygienic conditions, where the spread of diarrhoeal diseases can be a major contributor to the overall sickness and death.  This project will develop a sludge treatment system for the safe disposal of excreta in humanitarian emergencies, safeguarding both public health and the environment.

Contaminated water is blamed for widespread diseases, such as rotavirus, diarrhea and dysentery, contributing to approximately a third of deaths among rural school-age children in Kenya.  This project has created a biomass stove featuring an innovative, built-in jacket that can be filled with five litres of water that helps insulate the stove, making it more fuel efficient, and allows the user to boil water and cook simultaneously.

Preventing Infectious Diarrhoea in Kenyan and Indian Communities: Testing a Low-Cost, Point-of-Use Device for Safe Drinking Water

Rotavirus is the most common cause of severe diarrhea that annually kills 500,000 children under age five and hospitalizes millions more. India's Achira Labs is creating a fabric-based chip that, when integrated into disposable diapers, will help detect and signal the infectious virus quickly and safely. We will develop a fabric based immunoassay diagnostic chip for rapid, qualitative identification and detection of rotavirus that can be integrated into disposable diapers to ease the collection and detection of virus in watery stool samples.

Acute diarrhoeal disease is the second-leading cause of death in young children. Many researchers, including us at McMaster University and the Botswana-UPenn Partnership, have been working on developing better and faster ways to diagnose these infections, but the impact of these novel enteric diagnostics has not yet been formally measured. We will conduct a clinical trial in Botswana to determine how many young children's lives can be saved by the implementation of these new technologies.