Vitamin A supplementation in Indian children

摘要

The results of the DEVTA study presented by Shally Awasthi and colleagues (April 27, p 1469) show a surprisingly low effect of vitamin A supplementation on mortality in pre-school children in Uttar Pradesh, India. The study draws attention to the challenges of ensuring optimum delivery and adequacy in evaluation of efficacious interventions in a programmatic setting. It calls on programme implementers to undertake measures to achieve and sustain high coverage for optimum delivery and outcome of such interventions. The latest WHO guidelines2 for vitamin A supplementation in infants and children aged 6-59 months reaffirm that it is one of the most cost-effective child survival interventions available. In settings in which vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem, supplementation is recommended for infants and children aged 6-59 months as a public health intervention to reduce nutritional blindness, morbidity, and mortality.