首页|Randomized study of effect of different doses of vitamin A on childhood morbidity and mortality -- claiming benefit when there is none!
Randomized study of effect of different doses of vitamin A on childhood morbidity and mortality -- claiming benefit when there is none!
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NSTL
Vitamin A deficiency (VAD), the most important cause of preventable blindness in young children, has long been a significant public health problem in India. It is principally a nutritional disease due to inadequate dietary intake of the vitamin or its plant-based precursors, and is often aggravated by low absorption from the intestine due to frequent infections and infestations. Administration of massive dose of vitamin A every six months is accepted to be an inexpensive, quick, and effective way to improve vitamin A status and even save children's lives1. India, perhaps, is the first country in the world, to initiate the national programme of biannual distribution of mega doses of vitamin A to children of 1-5 yr age as a prophylactic measure to control blindness due to vitamin A deficiency in 1970. In fact, the World Bank estimated that vitamin A supplementation was one of the most cost-effective interventions available (less than US dollar 1 per disability-adjusted life year). The role of vitamin A supplementation in child survival received attention after Sommer and his colleagues2 demonstrated in Aceh province in Indonesia that biannual administration of vitamin A to young children could reduce child mortality significantly. Subsequently, a number of field trials were carried out in different countries to validate/verify these observations. A meta-analysis of eight field trials to assess the impact of vitamin A supplementation on child mortality indicated that improving the vitamin A status of children aged six months to five years reduced mortality rates by about 23 per cent in populations with low prevalence of clinical signs of vitamin A deficiency10.
NSTL
