The clinical efficacy of loperamide hydrochloride on treating diarrhea in lambs

Objectives: Neonatal diarrhea can be considered as an important problem in newborns. The most important considerations in treatment of neonatal diarrhea are prompt replacement of fluid and electrolyte losses, lowering milk intake, injection of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs. The present study was performed to evaluate the effect of loperamide hydrochloride on treatment diarrhea in lambs.Materials Methods: Ten diarrheic newborn lambs were randomly divided in to 2 equal groups. These lambs were showed 10% dehydration. In Group 1, balanced intravenous fluids, flunixin meglumine 5% (2.2 mg/kg) and oxytetracycline 5% (5 mg/kg) until 2 days were administered. In Group 2, the affected lambs were treated as Group 1 plus 0.1 mg/kg loperamide hydrochloride orally 3 times daily until 2 days. All patients were monitored 4 days after treatments. Results Conclusions: Group 2 was significantly improved earlier than Group 1. The diarrheic newborn suffers from dehydration and shock, which progressively worsen and are ultimately responsible for the death of the animal; thus the vital part of treatment is the intensive fluid therapy. The non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have several effects on treatment including antipyretic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects and decreasing the endotoxin absorption. Antibiotic therapy may be of benefit for some bacterial organisms such as salmonella, but antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria are very common or may develop quickly and these drugs may soon have little or no effect. Loperamide hydrochloride is one of the several derivatives of opium that decreases gastro-intestinal secretions and motilities and is used to treat of severe human diarrhea. The results of the present study indicated that loperamide hydrochloride is an active and potent drug against neonatal diarrhea in lambs which can be used in combination with other suitable drugs without significant side effects as suggested dosage.