In a study, conducted from 2000 to 2003, pneumonia caused almost 20 percent, or 2 million of 10.6 million, deaths, among children younger than 5 years worldwide. Diarrhea causes a further 1.9 million deaths annually to those at-risk children.
However, when put on a daily regimen of zinc, those same children have been reported to suffer less acute lower respiratory tract infections and diarrhea, and have a reduced child mortality rate.
Abdullah Brooks of the International Center for Diarrhea Disease Research, in Bangladesh, worked with his colleagues to look at whether giving children zinc weekly could prevent clinical pneumonia and diarrhea in children younger than two years.
According to The Lancet, between April 1999 and August 2000 the investigators recruited 1621 children aged 2-12 months from Kamalapur, Bangladesh. Half the children were assigned to a weekly 70mg dose of zinc and half to placebo. The investigators found mortality was reduced by 85% in the group assigned zinc. Children younger than 12 months in this group also had less pneumonia and diarrhea than those on placebo.
Dr Brooks now believes, "Zinc substantially reduced the incidence of pneumonia and other upper and lower respiratory tract disease, and modestly reduced that of diarrhea. However, the effect of zinc on mortality was strong . . . Zinc might be progressively protective against more invasive and severe disease, leading to an 85% reduction in overall mortality, primarily owing to pneumonia."
