Saving Lives Through Vitamin A

Current estimates show between 100-250 million children missed their first round of vitamin A supplements in 2020 due to COVID-19 and many are missing their second. This project provides up to two rounds of vitamin A for approximately 35 million children in 12 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.. The countries in which the project provides vitamin A have the highest needs as assessed by Nutrition International in collaboration with national partners and the Global Alliance for Vitamin A. Project activities include: (1) providing children under 5 years of age with vitamin A supplementation in countries where COVID-19 has interrupted its distribution and child mortality is highest and (2) reinforcing crucial nutrition interventions that address the specific needs of young children immediately to protect them at a critical phase of their life; and (3) confirming the target countries for the first and second rounds of support following updated needs assessments in March and September 2021. Other activities include: (1) delivering technical assistance and short-term funding needed to mobilize catch-up campaigns in countries at greatest risk of spikes in child mortality; (2) Supporting countries in delivering integrated packages of essential child survival and health services as part of this catch-up effort; and (3) Scaling-up of NI’s technical assistance and advisory services to reinforce government capability and programming

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved the capacity of governments to carry out “catch up” child health campaigns in the context of COVID-19 in at least 12 countries; (2) increased access to additional life-saving child survival interventions such as deworming nutrition screening bed net distribution and immunization catch up co-packaged with vitamin A supplementation in at least 4 countries; (3) improved the capacity of at least 12 000 frontline health care workers to deliver vitamin A in the context of Covid-19; and (4) improved the timeliness and quality of gender-sensitive post-event coverage validation assessments in target countries and ensured they are used to inform and improve future campaigns.