By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Oct. 21: The Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) is conducting a two-day nationwide campaign to administer vitamin A supplement and deworming tablets for children under five years of age on October 24 and 25.
The schedule of the nationwide campaign has been changed as the Dashain festival fell on the previously scheduled date. The government has been conducting the campaign on Kartik 3 and 4 of the Nepali month every year.
The MoHP has been conducting the campaign twice a year, in April and in October, since 2003.
No children should be deprived of the vitamin supplement and deworming tablets as it helps in reducing child mortality, said Dr. Sameer Adhikari, deputy spokesperson for the MoHP.
The MoHP aims to administer vitamin A supplement to over 2.75 million children aged between six months and five years. Over 2.4 million children above 12 months will be given the deworming tablets, according to the MoHP.
The MoHP has already provided training to female community health volunteers and other health workers. The vitamin A and deworming tablets have been dispatched to all local units, said Dr. Adhikari.
All the 51,000 female community health volunteers serving throughout the country will be deployed for the campaign.
The vitamin A campaign has helped tackle the issue of vitamin A deficiency among children, which was a major public health problem in the country. It is estimated that regular supplementation campaigns have reduced deaths among children under five by 23 per cent.
The United Nations Children’s Fund in its report said that worldwide only two out of five children received the life-saving benefit of vitamin A supplementation in 2020 as the campaign was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the World Health Organization, vitamin A deficiency causes visual impairment (night blindness) and vulnerability to illnesses like measles and diarrhoea among children.