Types & Causes of Childhood Diarrhea

The three clinical types of childhood diarrhoea include - acute watery, persistent and dysentery. Acute watery diarrhoea which lasts for less than 14 days constitutes 60 to 80% of childhood diarrhoea while persistent diarrhoea lasting for over 14 days forms 3 to 12% of all cases. The presence of blood in diarrhoea stool makes it dysenteric and this occurs in 10 to 20% of cases in the developing world. Childhood diarrhoea may be secretory, osmotic or invasive. Most cases of childhood diarrhoea in the developing world are infective. Close to 90% of enteropathogens in childhood diarrhoea are identifiable particularly with serology. This book discusses the aetiologies of childhood diarrhoea, as well as variance of these symptoms in different locations around the world. See more