Chelsea Clinton in Nigeria to promote program distributing zinc, oral rehydration solutions

"Chelsea Clinton is taking on the discomforting issue of diarrhea, throwing her family's philanthropic heft behind a sweeping effort in Nigeria to prevent the deaths of one million mothers and children each year from preventable causes, including 100,000 deaths from diarrhea," Reuters reports. "The 32-year-old daughter of President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton joined Nigerian officials, the prime minister of Norway and other leaders on Tuesday in promoting expanded access to zinc and oral rehydration solutions or ORS, a treatment that could prevent more than 90 percent of diarrhea-related deaths in the country," the news agency writes (Steenhuysen, 10/17).

The program is coordinated by the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), which "estimates making [ORS] tablets available to children could help prevent as many as 220,000 child deaths a year in Nigeria," the Associated Press notes (10/16). "A range of companies and organizations have signed on to the effort," Agence France-Presse adds (10/16). "It is unconscionable that in the 21st century, children still die of diarrhea," Clinton, who serves on the board of CHAI, said in an exclusive interview with Reuters, the news agency reports (10/17).