Vitamin A Supplementation

A population-level nutrition intervention in which infants and children aged 6 to 59 months receive periodic high-dose vitamin A in settings where vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem. The rationale is that inadequate vitamin A intake can cause night blindness and may increase the risk of illness and death from childhood infections, so supplementation aims to reduce child mortality and morbidity at scale. Randomized trials conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s found that supplementation greatly reduced child mortality, which drove the practice's global adoption, and since its linkage with immunization campaigns in the 1990s it has almost always been delivered alongside other health services. The size of the mortality effect under current conditions remains debated in the evidence literature.