Increase vitamin A supplementation to reduce child deaths in South Africa

Vitamin A supplementation is known to reduce infant and childhood mortality in areas where malnutrition is common, according to Mark Tomlinson and colleagues. The study, conducted by child health experts for the Medical Research Council, aimed to rank research priorities in South Africa. An estimated 100 000 children under the age of five years die in South Africa every year.

Increasing hand washing with soap ranked as second highest research priority in the fight against preventable child mortality. This simple measure would cut the incidence of childhood diarrhoea, still a leading cause of infant death in South Africa.

The third and fourth ranked research priorities were how to increase antibiotic use for children with pneumonia and how to ensure that women living with HIV recieve interventions to prevent transmission of the virus to their children.

Tomlinson and colleagues "suggest that child health research funding in South Africa should concentrate on health policy and systems research options, especially those related to diarrhoea, pneumonia, malnutrition and the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV."

Tomlinson M, Chopra M, Sanders D, Bradshaw D, Hendricks M, et al. (2007) Setting priorities in child health research investments for South Africa. PLoS Med 4(8): e259.
See here http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040259 for the full article.