Dr Dilip Mahalanabis, the renowned paediatrician credited with pioneering the oral rehydration therapy (ORS), died at a private hospital on Sunday, sources said.

Mahalanabis, 87, was suffering from lung infection and other old-age ailments, they said.

He had hit the headlines during the Liberation War in Bangladesh in 1971, when the doctor saved 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 of a modest amount of sugar and salt in water, specifically sodium and potassium, used to prevent and treat dehydration, especially due to diarrhea.

Dr Mahalanabis was a medical officer in the Diarrheal Disease Control Programme of the WHO in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. Later in the 1990s, he served as the Director of Clinical Research at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (ICDDR, B), Bangladesh.

He had won several prestigious awards for his contributions in the discovery and implementation of oral rehydration therapy. He was one of the winners of the first Pollin Prize in Pediatric Research in 2002 and also the Prince Mahidol Prize in 2006.

Expressing grief at his passing away, Director of Institute of Child Health, Dr Apurba Ghosh 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.