Bulletin of the World Health Organization

Effectiveness of zinc supplementation plus oral rehydration salts for diarrhoea in infants aged less than 6 months in Haryana state, India

Sarmila Mazumder, Sunita Taneja, Nita Bhandari, Brinda Dube, RC Agarwal, Dilip Mahalanabis, Olivier Fontaine & Robert E Black

Volume 88, Number 10, October 2010, 754-760

Table 2. Comparison of illness episodes and hospitalizations among children in interventiona and controlb sites, Haryana state, India, 2005–2006

Survey 2 (at 3 mo)
 ORc 95% CI Survey 3 (at 6 mo)
 ORc 95% CI
Intervention
 Control
 Intervention
 Control
No. % No. % No. % No. %
Caregivers interviewed 1303 – 1318 – 1055 – 1147 –
Episode in preceding 24 h
Diarrhoead 93 7.1 138 10.5 0.66 0.50–0.87 98 9.3 106 9.2 1.00 0.87–1.16
Pasli chalna or pneumoniae 38 2.9 44 3.3 0.87 0.46–1.62 12 1.1 24 2.1 0.54 0.27–1.06
ALRIf 32 2.5 39 3.0 0.82 0.42–1.60 12 1.1 22 1.9 0.59 0.37–0.93
Episode in preceding 14 dg
Diarrhoea 198 15.2 304 23.1 0.60 0.43–0.84 200 18.9 282 24.6 0.72 0.54–0.94
Pasli chalna or pneumonia 107 8.2 128 9.7 0.83 0.47–1.47 44 4.2 76 6.6 0.61 0.30–1.23
ALRI 81 6.2 95 7.2 0.85 0.45–1.60 38 3.6 71 6.2 0.57 0.30–1.07
Hospital admissions
All causes 59 4.5 102 7.7 0.56 0.31–1.02 41 3.9 104 9.1 0.40 0.34–0.49
Diarrhoea 9 0.7 16 1.2 0.56 0.23–1.40 7 0.7 22 1.9 0.34 0.18–0.63
Pasli chalna or pneumonia 39 3.0 80 6.1 0.48 0.20–1.18 25 2.4 72 6.3 0.36 0.24–0.55

ALRI, acute lower respiratory infection; CI, confidence interval; OR, odds ratio.

a Zinc supplementation plus oral rehydration salts.

b Oral rehydration salts only.

c Adjusted for cluster randomization.

d For infants aged < 2 months, caregiver’s report of recent change in consistency, frequency of stools or both; for children 2 months of age or older, caregiver’s report of ≥ 3 loose or watery stools in a 24-hour period.

e Based on caregiver’s use of the local terms pasli chalna or pneumonia.

f Presence of cough or difficult breathing along with fast breathing as reported by caregiver.

g If a child had multiple episodes in the specified window period, information was collected on the most recent one, i.e. only 1 episode per child was included in the analysis.