Gastroenteritis in Britain: management at home.

Gastroenteritis in children is less of a problem in Britain than it was a decade ago, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. As the decade opened deaths during infancy in England and Wales due to "enteritis and other diarrhoeal disease" were 40 per 100 000. There was little change until 1974, since when the rate has fallen substantially to 23 in 1978 and 9 in 1979.1 In 1971 the number of young children (0-4 years) admitted to hospitals in England and Wales for the treatment of gastroenteritis was 855 per 100 000. By 1977 this figure had been halved2-the 1980 triennial analysis of children's admissions is awaited with interest. At least part of this improvement has been attributed3 to the substantial changes in infant feeding practice that followed the Oppe report,4 more breast feeding and the almost universal use of a low-solute formula for bottle-fed babies. Nevertheless, just as in 1972,5 gastroenteritis is still an important killer in the postneonatal period (1-11 months), and the mortality figures in Britain compare unfavourably with those of many of our Common Market partners-the encouragingly low 1973 infant mortality due to gastroenteritis of nine in England and Wales was reached by Holland and Denmark by 1976, while their more recent figures are not available.' In Sheffield gastro- enteritis was responsible for five out of 18 "possibly avoidable" deaths in children aged 1 month to 2 years who were admitted to hospital.6