A million children are killed annually by diarrhea disease caused by Shigella and Escherichia coli (E coli).

The Info Project at the Bloomberg School of Health at John Hopkins University just published a fact sheet on "Developing New Vaccines Against Diarrheal Disease" by PATH.   It seems that PATH, an international nonprofit organization, last year was on the receiving end of a $50 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation  "to protect infants and children in low-resource countries by advancing development of safe, affordable, and effective new vaccines for two of the most important bacteria that cause diarrheal disease."

PATH’s Enteric Vaccine Initiative will collaborate with private- and public-sector partners to advance the development of safe and effective vaccines against the leading bacterial causes of diarrheal disease: Shigella and enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli.

According to the fact sheet,  the PATH project is looking at several ways  to produce effective vaccines, including killing the whole cell, subunit or conjugate polysacchardie-based, live attenuated strains, and bacterial vectors.  "Preventive vaccines designed to be practical for low resource countries are a high priority," the PATH fact sheet says.

PATH says diarrhea is the second leading cause of death in children age five and younger. Each year, almost two million children throughout the world die from severe, dehydrating diarrhea, and millions more are hospitalized.   Half of those deaths are due to Shigella and common E. coli.

 The Info Project abstract on the PATH fact sheet can be found here.