About the Authors

Kerri Wazny

Affiliation Programme for Global Paediatric Research, the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada

Alvin Zipursky

Affiliation Programme for Global Paediatric Research, the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada

Robert Black

Affiliation Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States of America

Valerie Curtis

Affiliation Hygiene Centre, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom

Christopher Duggan

Affiliation Center for Nutrition, Division of GI/Nutrition, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, United States of America

Richard Guerrant

Affiliation Center for Global Health, Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States of America

Myron Levine

Affiliation Center for Vaccine Development, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States of America

William A. Petri Jr

Affiliation Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States of America

Mathuram Santosham

Affiliation Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States of America

Rebecca Scharf

Affiliation Department of Pediatrics, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, United States of America

Philip M. Sherman

Affiliation Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism, and Diabetes, Toronto, Canada

Evan Simpson

Affiliation PATH, Seattle, United States of America

Mark Young

Affiliation Programme Division, United Nations Children's Fund, New York, United States of America

Zulfiqar A. Bhutta

zulfiqar.bhutta@aku.edu

Affiliations Division of Women and Child Health, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan, Global Child Health, the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada

Competing Interests

VC is the principal investigator on a research grant from Unilever Plc that aims to understand behaviour associated with handwashing with soap. ML holds a patent as co-inventor of live oral cholera vaccine strain CVD 103-HgR, which has been licensed by the vaccine company PaxVax, who are supporting the clinical development program towards national regulatory agency licensure of the vaccine. MS is on the editorial board of PLOS Medicine. PMS sits on the Medical Scientific Advisory Board for Alberta Inflammatory Bowel Disease Research Consortium. PMS sits on Medical Advisory Boards for Abbott Nutrition, Mead Johnson Nutrition, and Proctor and Gamble; PMS sits on the Research Advisory Board for Antibe Therapeutics and is a stockholder. PMS also currently holds a research contract from Institut Rosell-Lallemand Inc. (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) to study the effectiveness of a short-chain fructo-oligosaccharide (sc-FOS) prebiotic preparation in ameliorating intestinal epithelial injury in response to bacterial enteric pathogens using both polarized model epithelia in tissue culture and a murine model of colitis, undertaken in the Research Institute at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada where the funds are held in a research funding account. The studies are also supported by research funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2008–2013) and previously by a Fay Shapiro-Cutler grant-in-aid from the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada (2007–2010). ZAB is on the editorial board of PLOS Medicine, and is the principal investigator of the grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to coordinate the development of the Global Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrhoea. All other authors report no competing interests.

Author Contributions

Analyzed the data: KW. Wrote the first draft of the manuscript: KW. Contributed to the writing of the manuscript: KW AZ RB VC CD RG ML WAP MS RS PMS ES MY ZAB. ICMJE criteria for authorship read and met: KW AZ RB VC CD RG ML WAP MS RS PMS ES MY ZAB. Agree with manuscript results and conclusions: KW AZ RB VC CD RG ML WAP MS RS PMS ES MY ZAB.