Dr Dilip Mahalanabis, Credited For Saving Million Lives With ORS, Passes Away At 87 In Kolkata

Mahalanabis was suffering from lung infection and other old-age ailments.

Dr. Dilip Mahalanabis died at a private hospital on Sunday.

New Delhi: Dr. Dilip Mahalanabis, a pioneer in oral rehydration therapy, died at a private hospital on Sunday at the age of 87, news agency PTI reported citing sources. Mahalanabis was suffering from lung infection and other old-age ailments, they said.

He was in the news during the Liberation War in Bangladesh in 1971, when the doctor managed to save thousands of lives with the oral rehydration solution during an outbreak of cholera, while serving in a refugee camp at Bangaon in West Bengal. Oral rehydration therapy is a solution used to prevent and treat dehydration.

Director of the Institute of Child Health, Dr. Apurba Ghosh expressed grief and said Mahalanabis was a pioneer in the treatment of cholera and enteric diseases through low-cost methods. "His contributions will forever be remembered," Ghosh said as quoted by PTI.

Dr Dilip Mahalanabis: The Pioneer Of Oral Rehydration Therapy

Dr. Mahalanabis, who was born in West Bengal on November 12, 1934, studied in Kolkata and London before returning to Kolkata in the 1960s to work at the Johns Hopkins University International Centre for Medical Research and Training. He conducted oral rehydration therapy research there.

He developed Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) while working in overcrowded refugee camps during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, which The Lancet called "the most important medical discovery of the twentieth century."

Dr. Mahalanabis knew from his research that a sugar and salt solution, which would increase the body's absorption of water, could save lives. Then, he and his team started preparing salt-and-glucose-in-water solutions and started putting them in big drums where patients or their relatives could help themselves.

He worked for WHO in cholera control in Afghanistan, Egypt, and Yemen from 1975 to 1979. During the 1980s, he worked as a WHO consultant on bacterial disease management research.

Dr Dilip Mahalanabis along with Dr Nathaniel F Pierce was awarded the Pollin Prize by Columbia University in the year 2002. 

Diarrhoeal diseases, such as cholera, are among the leading causes of mortality in infants and young children in many developing countries, where the patient dies of dehydration, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). ORS, a mixture of water, glucose, and salts, is a simple and inexpensive way to prevent this.

While the medical community was initially divided, the WHO eventually adopted ORS as the standard treatment for cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases. The WHO now recommends an ORS formula of sodium chloride, anhydrous glucose, potassium chloride, and trisodium citrate dihydrate. ORS Day is observed on July 29 in India.

(With Inputs From Agencies)