Summaries of workshops

There were five workshops held as part of the conference “Bringing Zinc to the People” on 17 and 18 April 2005. Scientists and Public Health professionals representing national and international non-governmental organizations, UN agencies as well as the public and private health sector in Bangladesh have been discussing several issues in support of zinc.

The Scaling Up Zinc as a Treatment for Childhood Diarrhea in the Public Sector workshop with representatives from the DGHS, WHO, UNICEF and the SUZY project, was attended to identify best strategies to implement the scaling up zinc process in Bangladesh in the public sector. It was agreed that a policy decision on zinc, as a treatment for childhood diarrhea, needs to be taken by the Government of Bangladesh. Based on that, it was felt that zinc should be added to the essential drug list, guidelines and training materials have to be adapted and the introduction of zinc as a treatment for childhood diarrhoea should be integrated in the IMCI program.

For further information on this topic please contact Dr. Shams El Arifeen at the following address: shams@icddrb.org.

The Zinc-Oral Rehydration Solution workshop took up the question if zinc added to ORS will result in better outcomes. The major concern was the compliance to zinc treatment. Zinc needs to be given for 10 to 14 days. So far there is no evidence that the preventive effects of zinc in diarrhoea will occur if zinc is administered only for 2 to 3 days, which is the common duration of ORS administration. The consensus of the group was to not combine zinc with ORS in a single preparation.

For further information on this topic please contact Dr. PK Bardhan at the following address: bardhan@icddrb.org.

How Zinc Works? - Immunological Aspects of Zinc was a forum elaborating the role of zinc in immune function. Included in the discussion were zinc's influence on the efficacy of varied vaccines, its benefit in HIV-poisitve children, and current thinking about how zinc improves immune function in short-term regimes.

For further information on this topic please contact Dr. Md. Abdus Salam at the following address: masalam@icddrb.org.

The workshop entitled The Impact of Zinc in the Treatment of Pneumonia began by discussing studies on the effect of zinc as adjunct therapy for pneumonia and eventually addressed the question whether zinc can currently be recommended for pneumonia management or not. It was stated that the studies lack sufficient exploration of the nutritional status and/or the severity of pneumonia, which might influence the impact of zinc in both prevention and treatment of pneumonia. Furthermore, the WHO case definition of pneumonia was found to be very sensitive, but specificity is low, thus making interpretation of previous research more difficult. A more specific pneumonia case definition applied in future studies would support the actual efficacy of zinc in the management of pneumonia.

It was agreed that to recommend the integration of zinc into pneumonia case management as a policy would need to await further effectiveness studies.

For further information on this topic please contact Dr. Abdullah Brooks at the following address: abrooks@icddrb.org.

The Food Based Zinc Supplementation workshop was dedicated to the essential question: how to overcome the zinc deficiency in Bangladesh? Several initiatives were presented of which all are contributing to the overall goal. Nevertheless, there was a consensus on the need to identify food vehicles, which can be fortified with zinc at a national level and to reach all age groups including pre-school children.

For further information on this topic please contact Dr. Tahmeed Ahmed at the following e-mail address: tahmeed@icddrb.org.