Two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that vaccinating babies against rotavirus significantly cut deaths caused due to diarrhoea by 61 percent in Africa and by 35 percent in Mexico.

Severe Diarrhoea is mainly caused due to Rotavirus which engulfs more than 500,000 children under 5 every year, nearly half of them in Africa. Currently Rotavirus vaccines are given as part of the standard immunizations in developed countries such as Canada and the United States.

Merck and Co manufactures a rotavirus vaccine called RotaTeq and GlaxoSmithKline makes one called Rotarix.

The recent study, initiated by Dr. Kathleen Neuzil of PATH and the University of Washington and colleagues, involved testing of more than 4,000 infants in South Africa and Malawi, medicated either Glaxo's oral rotavirus vaccine or a placebo.

The study revealed 5% of the babies given a placebo developed severe diarrhoea, compared to 1.9 percent of those who got the vaccine, they said -- a 61 percent efficacy rate.

74 percent of babies had received at least one dose by December 2007 and in 2008, there were 1,118 diarrhoea-related deaths among children younger than 5, which were 675 fewer than in 2006.

"The next challenge is to ensure that rotavirus vaccines reach all those in need", claimed Dr. Tachi Yamada of the nonprofit Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.