Indian doctor gets Thai royal award

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Bangkok, Feb 1 (UNI) An Indian doctor has received the Prince Mahidol Award 2006 for his pioneering concept of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) in controlling diarrhoea, one of the biggest killer diseases.

Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej conferred the Prince Mahidol Award, a Thai royal honour, on Director of Kolkata-based Society for Applied Studies Dilip Mahalanabis and three other public health experts and scientists at a ceremony marked by traditional pageantry in the historic Grand Palace here last evening.

Dr Mahalanabis' public health work, three decades ago in refugee camps in West Bengal during the Bangladesh Liberation War, demonstrated to a sceptical scientific community that a simple solution of salt and sugar was a highly effective treatment for diarrhoea.

His application of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) among the more than 300,000 inmates was the first large-scale field application of what has since become one of the most effective public health remedies.

It helped slash diarrhoea-induced mortality rates in the refugee camps to three per cent from a high 20 to 30 per cent using then prevalent intravenous fluid therapy.

Dr Mahalanabis began his work on ORT in 1966 as a researcher for John Hopkins University International Center for Medical Research and Training in Kolkata.

Also honoured with the 50,000 US dollar-award named after the father of the Thai king who was also a public health professional, were the experts who scientifically established and tested the validity of ORT in the 1960s and 1970s.

Stanley G. Schultz, Dean of the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, Texas, United States, demonstrated in the 1960s the close link between glucose and sodium absorption in the small intestine.

This formed the scientific basis for the development of oral rehydration solution (ORS) which now saves an estimated three million lives in the developing world every year. Five hundred million ORT packs are used annually in over 60 developing countries.

David R Nalin, former director of Vaccine Scientific Affairs, Merck Vaccine Division, Merck and Co. Inc., Pensylvania, United States and Richard A. Cash, Harvard University School of Public Health, Boston, United States, together successfully tested the efficacy of ORS while working in the 1960s in the Pakistan-SEATO Cholera Research Laboratory in Dhaka in the then East Pakistan.

The four were chosen from among 59 candidates from 29 countries considered for the annual Prince Mahidol Award instituted in 1992 to honour individual(s) or institution(s) who have made outstanding and exemplary contributions to the advancement of medicine and public health around the world.