Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 17, 1995 TAG: 9506200050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS LENGTH: Medium
The United Nations Children's Fund reports that 1 million to 3 million lives could be saved annually if young children in the Third World took a Vitamin A pill two or three times a year. The annual cost per child: 4 to 6 cents.
In its latest annual report, UNICEF displays some striking statistics to back up this assertion. It estimates that in 1994, in impoverished areas with a high risk of infectious disease, feeding the Vitamin A supplement to about two-thirds of children younger than 6 saved 220,000 lives in India and 9,700 in Brazil. In Bangladesh, where 94 percent of the children received Vitamin A, 70,500 lives were saved.
But UNICEF does not believe the statistics are striking enough, for many governments have failed to implement large-scale programs to wipe out the deficiency.
``In the meantime,'' Dr. Alfred Sommer, dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, wrote in the report, ``at least two children are dying every minute for the lack of the protection that Vitamin A can bring. The 2-cent capsules are therefore an essential weapon for the defense of children. ... There can be no excuse for further delay.''
Sommer wrote that despite experimental testing he led in Indonesia in the 1980s that showed a one-third reduction in death rates among children taking Vitamin A, ``the response was the long silence of disbelief.''
With its penchant for high technology, Sommer wrote, ``the medical and research establishment found it difficult to accept that something as simple and cheap as a 2-cent capsule of Vitamin A could represent such a breakthrough for human life and health.''
That establishment was persuaded, however, when an experiment in Tanzania showed that the death rate would fall by half if Vitamin A was distributed to children with measles. Sommer said he and his colleagues were subsequently astonished to learn that the same results had been demonstrated by an experiment with measles-infected children in a London hospital half a century ago - and then ignored.
Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.