Acute respiratory infections prevent improvement of vitamin A status in young infants supplemented with vitamin A.

Study answer

What this study found

Vitamin A modestly improved vitamin A status and reduced the duration of acute respiratory infections, but it did not reduce the number of diarrhea or ARI episodes, and many infants remained vitamin A deficient after supplementation. In the vitamin A group, ARI duration was 27.6 ± 17.1 vs 40.8 ± 22.7 days per child-year in placebo (P = 0.005), while ARI episodes per child-year and diarrhea outcomes were not significantly different. In post-supplementation testing, 61% of vitamin A recipients still had RDR > 20 versus 82% of placebo recipients (P = 0.06). Among supplemented infants who…

Study & population

Randomized placebo-controlled trial in very young infants aged 6-17 weeks attending an immunization clinic in Dhaka, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B EPI clinic).

Intervention

Oral vitamin A was given as 15 mg retinyl palmitate in oil per dose, administered at monthly intervals for 3 doses at 0, 4, and 8 weeks alongside DPT/OPV immunizations.

Key limitation

The trial was stopped early because of bulging fontanelle in 10% of vitamin A recipients, limiting safety interpretation and follow-up.

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Original abstract