GlobalHealthCuratedhigh confidence

Diarrhoeal Disease in Children

Children still die in large numbers from an illness treatable with salt, sugar and clean water.

Severity score

45.8

Serious · default weighting

Trajectory

Improving

What this is

Diarrhoeal disease remains among the leading killers of children under five, concentrated in households without safe water, sanitation or nearby health care. Oral rehydration therapy costs cents and remains under-used. The burden is falling but far too slowly.

Score breakdown

Loss of life

66

Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.

Lives negatively impacted

72

People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.

Financial cost

22

Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.

Environmental impact

8

Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.

Trajectory

24

Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.