Staff Reporter:
The National Vitamin A-plus campaign will start on Saturday with a target to feed vitamin A-plus capsules to over 2.22 crore children, aged between six months and 59 months, to prevent childhood blindness and reduce child mortality in the country.
“Feeding Vitamin A capsules prevent blindness in children, ensures normal growth, reduces all types of child mortality by 24% and significantly reduces mortality from measles, diarrhoea and pneumonia,” Director General of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam told a press briefing here on Thursday.
The vitamin A plus campaign will be conducted later in cyclone-hit coastal regions, he said.
Under the campaign, 27 lakh children, aged between six months and 11 months, will be given blue-coloured vitamin A-plus capsules while 1.95 crore children, aged between 12 and 59 months, will be administered red-coloured capsules on the day.
Khurshid urged people to feed vitamin A-plus capsules to their children to ensure that not a single child is left out of getting the vitamin capsules.
“We can cut 24% child mortality from the country through successful implementation of the campaign,” he added.
Blindness problem has reduced significantly in the country due to feeding of vitamin A-plus capsules, he added.
After the independence of the country, over 4% children suffered from blindness due to vitamin A deficiency, while now only 0.01% children suffer from blindness, the DGHS DG added.
A total of 240,000 volunteers and 40,000 health workers will work in the countrywide campaign to administer Vitamin A capsules at all health complexes and mobile health centres throughout the day, Khurshid said.
Vitamin A deficiency is a serious threat to both mother and child’s health, health experts said, adding that the impact of vitamin A deficiency is not only limited to blindness, but also increases death risk by causing various diseases.
