UK and Pakistani experts are of the opinion that administering vitamin A supplements to below-5 children in low and middle-income countries can help save as many as 600,000 lives every year! 
In their research, published in the British Medical Journal, a team of researchers from the University of Oxford and Aga Khan University has drawn attention to the fact that the body requires vitamin A – which is found in foods including cheese, eggs, liver and oily fish – for the proper functioning of the visual and immune systems. 
On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of the results of 43 trials of vitamin A supplementation, involving more than 200,000 children aged between 6 months and 5 years, the researchers found that vitamin A supplements brought about a 24 percent decline in child mortality in low- and middle-income countries. 
Underscoring the “compelling and clear” evidence for vitamin A, and estimating that nearly 190 million children are vitamin A deficient, the researchers calculated that a 24 percent lower death rate would eventually end up saving over 600,000 lives a year. 
With the researchers noting that deficiency of vitamin A in children not only increases their vulnerability to infections like diarrhoea and measles, but can also lead to blindness, Dr Evan Mayo-Wilson – from the University of Oxford – said: “Until other sources are available, supplements should be given to all children who are at risk of vitamin A deficiency”!