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Without enough vitamin A, up to half a million children go blind every year.

About the project

Children in Bangladesh will get vital help to save their eyesight - through our project to deliver vitamin A to 1.2 million children in seven countries across Africa and Asia.

With our partners Helen Keller International (HKI), we are reaching children in Bangladesh’s Chittagong hill tracts where vitamin A deficiency is severe.

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is the leading cause of preventable childhood blindness in developing countries. The vitamin helps keep the eye moist and healthy, and supports growth and development of a healthy immune system.

Without enough vitamin A, between 250,000 and 500,000 children go blind every year – and 70% of them will die within one year of becoming blind.

But we can reduce the mortality of young children under five by up to 34%, just by giving them enough vitamin A.

Worldwide, 127 million pre-school children and seven million pregnant women in the developing world suffer from vitamin A deficiency.

Blindness in children is thought to be responsible for about one third of the total economic cost of blindness.

By the end of the project we aim to have:

• Provided 1.22 million children with vitamin A, each year for 3 years
• Supplied sustained vitamin A supplementation twice-yearly for children aged 6-59 months
• Helped children in seven countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Other projects in Bangladesh