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New swab reveals treatable infection in one third of babies

The new tool allowed researchers to discover that children with severe diarrhea in Botswana had a previously unrecognized pathogen that leads to 760,000 deaths a year.

By Stephen Feller
The flocked swab allows for a better sample than a traditional swab that is more easily and safely transported for testing the same day the sample is taken. Photo courtesy: David Goldfarb, Jeff Pernica
The flocked swab allows for a better sample than a traditional swab that is more easily and safely transported for testing the same day the sample is taken. Photo courtesy: David Goldfarb, Jeff Pernica

TORONTO, May 25 (UPI) -- Using a new flocked swab, researchers in a study testing out the tool diagnosed children in Botswana with an easily treatable but previously unrecognized pathogen that leads to 760,000 deaths a year.

Children chosen for the study were found to be 55 percent less likely to have the diarrhea reappear, in addition to showing a "clinically significant" gain in height sixty days after treatment, a development which researchers said shows to affect of these pathogens on development.

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The flocked swab makes it easier and safer to collect and analyze stool samples with same day tests, allowing for a large number of pathogens beyond just the one causing severe diarrhea. In the study, one-third of the 671 of the children hospitalized with severe diarrhea had a pathogen that can be caught by testing with the swab.

"For many of the leading causes of severe diarrhea in children, there are effective low-cost treatments available," said Jeff Pernica, M.D., an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the Head of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease at McMaster University, in a press release. "The issue, however, is that up until recently it was not possible to determine the specific pathogen causing illness in a timely manner."

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According to Pernica, 4 percent of children in Botswana and more than 7 percent of children in sub-Saharan Africa die of an illness connected to severe diarrhea, and many experience cognitive or some other form of developmental delay.

"Further demonstrating significant improvements in outcomes would necessitate an entire rethinking of how this very common condition is managed around the world," said Dr. David Goldfarb, a researcher at the University of British Columbia.

The study is published in Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.

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