Preventing Childhood Blindness through Vitamin A Supplementation

• Globally, an estimated 2,50,000–5,00,000 children go blind every year.
• Half of them die within 12 months of losing their sight.
• 62% of preschool children in India suffer from childhood blindness

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is recognized as a serious public health issue in developing countries across the world. In India, millions of children suffer from blindness every year, due to VAD. This results from insufficient nutritional food in the early years of their life, lack of education and awareness, poor sanitation and the inaccessibility of health services in far-flung and remote corners of the country. 

While historically many public health interventions have succeeded in reaching almost 70% of the population, gaps in service coverage remain largest in low- and middle-income countries. In India millions of people living in hard-to-reach areas, urban slums or migrating seasonally, remain unreached with essential health and nutrition services. Among them, the most affected continue to be children. Not only does VAD increase the chances of childhood blindness, but it also significantly diminishes the ability of children to fight common childhood infections, often leading to mortality. 

Childhood blindness is preventable. 

All it takes is a simple inexpensive and proven intervention - one high-dose vitamin A capsule, given twice a year to children 6-59 months of age. 

Vitamin Angels reach out to children in hard-to-reach communities and unreached by the public health system to provide them with vitamin A supplementation. Vitamin Angels have been helping reduce childhood blindness for over a decade in India through its robust network of over 1800 program partners and 11 state governments and Union Territories. In the last 10 years, Vitamin Angels have provided 12.5 million children under five years with high-dose vitamin A capsules across the country. Even during the pandemic, Vitamin Angels helped mobilize over 10 million doses of vitamin A to State and UT Governments to reach approximately 6 million children under 5. 

To know more about our work, please visit us at: https://www.vitaminangels.org/childhood-blindness

The money raised through the Fundraiser will provide high-dose vitamin A supplementation to 1,00,000 children between 6-59 months of age, across the country for a year. This will go a long way in helping reduce the chances of childhood blindness in children suffering from vitamin A deficiency and give them a chance at a healthy nourished life.