National Vitamin A Plus campaign would be observed today across Bangladesh to feed Vitamin A Plus capsule to over 2.21 crore children aged between six months to 59 months to prevent childhood blindness and reduce child mortality.
Under the campaign, children aged between six months and 11 months will be given capsule with blue color while children aged between 12 and 59 months will be administered with red color capsule on the day, the Health and Family Welfare Ministry sources said.
While inaugurating the National Vitamin A Plus campaign at Dhaka Shishu Hospital on Thursday (Dec 21), Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammad Nasim said health workers and volunteers will feed the Vitamin A Plus capsules from 1.20 lakh permanent and 20 thousand mobile centres across the country which will remain open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Mobile centres will be set up at bus stops, airports and launch terminals and other transport points to administer the children Vitamin A plus capsules.
Vitamin A deficiency is not cause to only blindness, the experts said adding it increases death risk by causing various diseases. Vitamin A is needed for children to prevent blindness as well as other diseases related to eye.
Infants should be given breast milk within one hour of their births as it contains a large percentage of protein, mineral and vitamin, which greatly will help improve their immune system, health experts say.
