Staff Reporter:
The National Vitamin ‘A’ Plus Campaign will be held simultaneously across the country today.
Under this program, the government has set a target of feeding Vitamin ‘A’ capsules to about 2,40,36,022 children aged 6 months to 59 months. The campaign will run from 8 am to 4 pm.
However, a child-to-child searching activity will be conducted in 714 wards of 290 unions of 58 upazilas in 12 districts in remote areas for four days after the campaign.
In this campaign, organized in association with the Ministry of Health and UNICEF Bangladesh, two types of capsules will be fed to children according to their age. Children aged 6 to 11 months will be given one blue capsule and children aged 12 to 59 months will be given one red high-potency vitamin ‘A’ capsule each.
These capsules will be distributed through about 120,000 permanent centers and 500 temporary centers in crowded places like bus terminals and ferry ghats across the country. Trained health workers and vol-unteers will be engaged in this work.
In this regard, State Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr MA Muhit told reporters that the Na-tional Vitamin ‘A’ Plus Campaign is very important for children to grow up healthy, increase their im-munity and reduce the risk of malnutrition-related deaths.
The program will continue at designated centers from 8 am to 4 pm today.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain will inaugurate the Vitamin ‘A’ Cap-sule Campaign at a function at Abu Sayeed Convention Centre in city’s Shahbagh this morning.
