Acute respiratory infection and acute diarrhea are among the most prevalent diseases of childhood increase the burden of morbidity and mortality in children under 5 years.

Among the possible strategies for its prevention is important to count on good nutritional status for use in developing a good immune response to infections. Zinc deficiency has been shown to favor the development of infections and has been considered a real public health problem.

Within the zinc compounds used are zinc amino acid chelate and zinc sulphate, the first that has shown evidence of being better absorbed and tolerated.

We propose a study showing the effectiveness of zinc amino acid chelate and zinc sulphate in the prevention of acute diarrheal disease and acute respiratory infection.

Inclusion Criteria:

Children who

• Belong to institute FAN in Medellín
• Attend full time to institute FAN (eight hours)
• Have 2 to 5 years

Exclusion Criteria:

Children who

• Children at the began of the study are with acute diarrheal disease and acute respiratory infection.
• Recurrent pneumonia, cystic fibrosis, gastrointestinal malformations, persistent diarrhea of any cause, inflammatory bowel disease.
• Failure to attend the educational institution for more than 10 days
• No consumption of zinc supplementation for more than 10 days, because of insistence to the school