Indian researchers have found that zinc supplementation combined with standard antibiotics reduces the risk of treatment failure in young children with suspected serious bacterial infections by 40 percent. The study, published online in The Lancet, found that 66 percent of deaths among children under 5 years of age worldwide in 2010 were due to infections, about two-fifths of which were younger than two months of age. The study’s sponsor, Shinjini Bhatnagar of the Institute of Translational Health Sciences and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, said, “Zinc is an easily available and inexpensive intervention that can complement the efficacy of antibiotic therapy and substantially reduce infant mortality, especially in developing countries where millions of children die each year from serious infections and in areas lacking second-line antibiotics and intensive care in areas.” Wang Jun t, Intensive Care Unit, Nanping First Hospital To evaluate the effectiveness of zinc in combination with standard antibiotics for the treatment of suspected serious bacterial infections such as meningitis, pneumonia and sepsis, the researchers recruited a cohort of children aged 120 days to 7 years from three hospitals in New Delhi, India, who were receiving antibiotics for serious infections. The researchers administered 10 mg of zinc orally daily to 352 children and a placebo to 348 children in a randomized grouping. The researchers measured treatment failure rates as the need for secondary antibiotic therapy within 7 days, intensive care, or death within 21 days. The researchers found that the rate of treatment failure was reduced by 40 percent in the zinc-supplemented children compared to placebo. There were 34 treatment failures among the 332 children on zinc supplementation compared to 55 treatment failures among the 323 children on placebo. Although not statistically significant, the researchers found a relatively lower risk of mortality in zinc-supplemented children (43 percent). The researchers said, “We only needed to supplement zinc in 15 children with potentially serious bacterial infections to prevent 1 case of treatment failure.” They concluded, “In many low- or middle-income countries, zinc preparations in syrup or loose tablets are available from public or private health organizations for the treatment of acute diarrhea, and the cost of such interventions for suspected severe bacterial infections in infants is low.” In a joint commentary, Christa Fischer Walker and Robert Black of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said, “This finding is quite important because of the high mortality rate among infants with suspected severe bacterial infections. The exact mechanism of the effect of zinc supplementation is unknown and requires further study, but the clinical benefits of treatment with zinc for diarrhea, pneumonia and now suspected serious infections in infants under 5 years of age suggest that treatment with zinc may be widely available. In addition, zinc may be of great benefit in the treatment of other serious bacterial infections such as typhoid or meningitis.”