antares4141
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Interesting findings from a study bill gates funded.
https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bi...-PF&utm_source_platform=Facebook_Desktop_Feed
Soon the doctors noticed something intriguing: The communities where children got the azithromycin seemed to have lower rates of child mortality than those where they didn’t.
To find out whether that was really true—and if so, why it was true—the foundation funded a large study involving about 200,000 children in three countries. When the results came out in 2018, we were thrilled. In places with high rates of child mortality, giving azithromycin preemptively to all children significantly improved the odds that they would survive.
Why would that be? Recently, researchers have been focusing on the idea that many birth problems start long before the baby is born and are connected to conditions in the mother’s digestive tract—especially an unhealthy gut microbiome. If the mom doesn’t have a good mix of bacteria, viruses, and other microbes, then her gut gets inflamed and can’t absorb all the nutrients she needs to stay healthy. Her baby will have the same problems, leading to malnutrition and possibly death.
The study we were so excited about revealed that the azithromycin was killing off bad bacteria in the children’s guts, reducing the inflammation and allowing their bodies to absorb essential nutrients. Based on this finding, local groups are now providing azithromycin to children under the age of one in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, where child mortality rates are especially high. (For more on this fascinating story, see this blog post on the foundation’s site.)
After that study was finished, we turned to the next set of questions: Is it possible to reach kids earlier, before they’re born? Would it help both the baby and the mom to treat her while she’s in labor? What about before she goes into labor, in the second and third trimesters? Two studies involving tens of thousands of women in Africa and South Asia just concluded this year. The findings haven’t been published yet, but I’m optimistic that they’ll show significant gains for mothers and babies.
https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bi...-PF&utm_source_platform=Facebook_Desktop_Feed
Soon the doctors noticed something intriguing: The communities where children got the azithromycin seemed to have lower rates of child mortality than those where they didn’t.
To find out whether that was really true—and if so, why it was true—the foundation funded a large study involving about 200,000 children in three countries. When the results came out in 2018, we were thrilled. In places with high rates of child mortality, giving azithromycin preemptively to all children significantly improved the odds that they would survive.
Why would that be? Recently, researchers have been focusing on the idea that many birth problems start long before the baby is born and are connected to conditions in the mother’s digestive tract—especially an unhealthy gut microbiome. If the mom doesn’t have a good mix of bacteria, viruses, and other microbes, then her gut gets inflamed and can’t absorb all the nutrients she needs to stay healthy. Her baby will have the same problems, leading to malnutrition and possibly death.
The study we were so excited about revealed that the azithromycin was killing off bad bacteria in the children’s guts, reducing the inflammation and allowing their bodies to absorb essential nutrients. Based on this finding, local groups are now providing azithromycin to children under the age of one in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, where child mortality rates are especially high. (For more on this fascinating story, see this blog post on the foundation’s site.)
After that study was finished, we turned to the next set of questions: Is it possible to reach kids earlier, before they’re born? Would it help both the baby and the mom to treat her while she’s in labor? What about before she goes into labor, in the second and third trimesters? Two studies involving tens of thousands of women in Africa and South Asia just concluded this year. The findings haven’t been published yet, but I’m optimistic that they’ll show significant gains for mothers and babies.