Aceh Vitamin A Trial

About the Trial

Alfred Sommer and colleagues randomized 450 villages in Aceh province, Indonesia, so that preschool children in half the villages received high dose vitamin A capsules while the rest served as controls until the end of the study. Mortality among children in the supplemented villages was 34 percent lower, a startling result since only severe deficiency was then thought to matter. Published in the Lancet in 1986, the trial was followed by further community trials in Asia and Africa, and pooled analyses confirmed substantial reductions in child mortality. Vitamin A supplementation became a core child survival intervention promoted by UNICEF and the World Health Organization.