Asia: Linking Vitamin A and De-Worming

Bangladesh was one of the first countries to recognize and to start tackling vitamin A deficiency among young children over twenty years ago. Recently, they have used National Immunization Day campaigns to provide vitamin A supplements to more than 80% of their children under five. More recently, they renewed and strengthened this commitment by including the purchase of vitamin A supplements in their national plans and budgets. Recognizing the benefits of linking the provision of de-worming treatment with vitamin A supplementation, they more recently instituted “vitamin A plus” campaigns to deliver both together.

Even as the country was recovering from the 2004 floods, MI was able to provide support to the government and UNICEF to ensure that a “Vitamin A plus” campaign took place in late October. This ensured that the gap between campaigns did not span more than six months. MI also agreed with key stakeholders to act as a technical and financial partner for the next campaign in April 2005 and to help secure the future of these campaigns.

A study that MI conducted this year also found that children under the age of 12 months were not as well-served as older children. So MI began work with the Government to develop ways to reach the most vulnerable children in un-reached population ‘pockets', and to increase coverage of children younger than 12 months of age.