From A to Zinc, USAID Combats Childhood Illnesses

Vitamin and mineral deficiency ? also known as micronutrient deficiency ? exacts a devastating and often deadly toll, especially on the poorest countries. More than two billion people suffer from vitamin A, iron, zinc and iodine deficiencies. It hits women and children the hardest, causing birth defects, maternal death, childhood mortality, blindness, anemia and increased vulnerability to infections.

For more than twenty years, USAID has supported research into vitamin A, a powerful lifesaving intervention. USAID is also supporting groundbreaking scientific inquiry into the role of vitamin A in reducing maternal death; the effects of micronutrients on lowering child mortality; and the importance of zinc as a micronutrient. In the last six years, USAID has sponsored research on Zinc in both the prevention and treatment of major childhood illnesses like acute respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, malaria and also on improving low birthweight.

Most notably, Zinc supplementation has been shown to reduce the severity of acute respiratory infections and diarrheal diseases in mothers and children. Zinc supplementation, a simple and inexpensive intervention, not only decreases the duration and severity of diarrheal disease, but also reduces subsequent episodes of diarrhea among children under 5.

With USAID support, a new dissolvable zinc tablet was developed. Its use as a treatment with Oral Rehydation Salts (ORS), another USAID-supported technology, is saving lives, reducing the more than 1.2 million deaths that occur from diarrheal diseases in children under five. It is now being used in large-scale zinc supplementation trials in India, Nepal and Zanzibar to prevent diarrheal diseases.

Zinc is also included in USAID supported food fortification initiatives, another cost-effective, sustainable means to reduce micronutrient deficiency. USAID is improving the micronutrient content of basic foods by expanding research, development and dissemination of biofortified crops -- enhanced vitamin A, iron and zinc maize; enhanced iron and zinc beans; and vitamin A enhanced sweet potato and through supplementation.

The aims of USAID supported micronutrient research and new product introduction are to decrease child and maternal mortality; reduce skyrocketing healthcare costs; and boost mental and physical development and national productivity.