Short-course drug relieves child diarrhoea -study

LONDON (Reuters) - A short course of nitazoxanide relieves severe diarrhoea in children infected with rotavirus, which kills half a million youngsters in mainly poor countries each year, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Nitazoxanide, which is sold by the privately owned U.S. company Romark Laboratories under the trade name Alinia, relieved symptoms in just over 30 hours in young children with severe diarrhoea.

"These results are encouraging, and might lead us to think about new approaches to managing rotavirus disease in children," said Jean-Francois Rossignol of The Romark Institute for Medical Research in Tampa, Florida.

Rotavirus, the most common cause of serious diarrhoea in children, can be spread by water, food or contact with contaminated surfaces. It also causes gastroenteritis, inflammation of the stomach and small intestines.

Nitazoxanide was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2002 and is the first new drug for treating gastrointestinal infections in children for more than 40 years.

Rossignol compared the effects of nitazoxanide given twice a day for three days with the effects of placebo in 50 children with severe diarrhoea admitted to the Cairo University Children's Hospital last summer.

The results, published online by The Lancet medical journal, are also being presented at the 7th International Rotavirus Workshop in Lisbon, Portugal.

The drug cleared the illness in an average 31 hours, less than half the time of the placebo group, without producing any side effects.

Rossignol said larger trials of the drug are being conducted to confirm these results.