Every day, more than 4,000 children under the age of five die for want of a tiny bit of salt, sugar and some clean water. Oral rehydration therapy (ORT) is a fast and effective way to combat the potentially fatal effects of diarrhoea, which remains the second most common cause of death among young children behind pneumonia.
When I was working in Zambia for a European development NGO, part of our time was spent conducting health and wellbeing seminars for women, which included how to mix up oral rehydration therapy. Salt, sugar and water is the unbelievably simple recipe, and it can save lives. You’d think this was a no-brainer, right? Give the parents the knowledge they need to be able to save their children and all will be well.
I soon realised, however, that it was one thing to share a simple life-saving recipe, and another to have the resources to use it. Many of the families I knew didn’t have easy access to the salt or the sugar. I remember watching people at the local market buy the smallest amount you could imagine of anything – a few splashes of oil, grams of salt to flavour the stew.
The majority of people in the area were subsistence farmers, with very little surplus to exchange for cash. Even a tiny splash of oil for cooking was, for many, beyond their means, and only purchasable in tiny portions. No bulk buying for them. To mix ORT wasn’t a matter of just going to the pantry and mixing up a solution, as we would do here.
So the pre-packaged UNICEF-provided Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) are for many a life-line. Costing only 10 cents to provide to developing countries, it can mean the difference between life and death. If you saw 10 cents in the street, would you even bother to pick it up? Imagine that 10 cents being what the life of your child is worth.
I would urge you to get behind UNICEF’s ORS appeal.
Supporting the appeal will help to boost UNICEF’s supplies of life-saving ORS, as well as giving training to health workers and parents on how and when ORS should be used.
"I'm a UNICEF supporter, and I'd love you to join me."
2 Comments
It’s shocking to learn that innocent children are dying just for 10 cents..
It is really surprising how a bit of salt, sugar, and water can save a person. To have the ability to save a person from dyeing is amazing and it would only cost us 10 cents. More than 4000 children under the age of 5 die every day because they do not have a bit of salt, sugar, and water, that is really sad. To many of us 10 cents is nothing and we through that around everyday. At the end we should all try to help the children that die every day by donating a little which can make a dramatic difference.