The National Vitamin A-plus campaign begins with a target of feeding over 2.20 crore children aged six months to 59-month vitamin A-plus capsule to prevent childhood blindness and reduce child mortality in the Bangladesh.
Feeding Vitamin-A capsules prevents blindness in children, ensures normal growth, reduces all types of child mortality by 24 percent and significantly reduces mortality from measles, diarrhea and pneumonia, the health ministry sources said.
In addition to administering the Vitamin-A supplements and malnutrition screenings, the community volunteers who went door-to-door also provided the households with vital nutrition-related messages in the camp. These include awareness on the dangers of malnutrition and counselling on actionable steps to prevent their children from succumbing to it.
“We had to work with our implementing partners to quickly modify our plans for NAW this year,” says Karanveer Singh, UNICEF Nutrition Manager in Cox’s Bazar. “A month-long door-to-door campaign was rolled out in order to better protect everyone involved. This is one of the few Vitamin-A supplementation campaigns being conducted in the world during the pandemic. Our results from this campaign have shown remarkable achievement considering the current risks compounded by the heavy monsoon rainfall in the Rohingya camps, we have reached 97 per cent of children aged 6-59 months.”
The National Vitamin A-plus campaign begins in the camp on June 14, 2023 and Dr Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, acting civil surgeon at district EPI Centre, gave this information at about 3:30pm, “A total of 152,356 children will get vitamin ‘A’ capsules at 45 sites in 33 camps of Ukhiya, Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar. Among these, 15,665 children aged 6-11 months will be fed blue capsules and 136,692 children aged 12-59 months will be fed red capsules.”
Dr Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, acting civil surgeon at district EPI Centre. also explained, “Besides Bangladeshi children, children born in Rohingya camps from June 18-22 have also been brought under the national vitamin ‘A’ plus campaign. We have administered this vaccination at 45 sites in 33 Rohingya camps.”
The civil surgeon also said that 416 mobile teams will be in charge of vaccination at 45 camp sites. Each team will consist of four people, with two supervisors and two volunteers.
Dr Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir said: “Rohingya mothers are relatively less aware than Bangladeshis. As a result, children are at risk of health issues and death. Therefore, it was decided to launch this campaign in the Rohingya camp to eliminate various diseases. With the help of health workers and volunteers, these Rohingya children will be fed vitamin ‘A’ capsules.”
In addition to administering the Vitamin-A supplements and malnutrition screenings, the community volunteers who went door-to-door also provided the households with vital nutrition-related messages. These include awareness on the dangers of malnutrition and counselling on actionable steps to prevent their children from succumbing to it.
“We had to work with our implementing partners to quickly modify our plans for NAW this year,” says Karanveer Singh, UNICEF Nutrition Manager in Cox’s Bazar. “A month-long door-to-door campaign was rolled out in order to better protect everyone involved. This is one of the few Vitamin-A supplementation campaigns being conducted in the world during the pandemic. Our results from this campaign have shown remarkable achievement considering the current risks compounded by the heavy monsoon rainfall in the Rohingya camps, we have reached 97 per cent of children aged 6-59 months.”
Meanwhile, 483,983 children of eight upazilas of Cox’s Bazar will be fed vitamin ‘A’ capsules. These capsules will be fed in 1,802 centres of the district from June 18-22. At the same time, nutrition messages will be disseminated for awareness in 216 wards of 72 unions, said the district Civil Surgeon Office.
