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HIGHLIGHTS OF 1980-81 PROGRAMS
Helping Poverty's Children to See:
HKI Nutritional Blindness Prevention
Hunger and poverty strike hardest at those who
are most vulnerable: innocent children who suffer
from malnutrition and disease. Millions of children
are the targets of one of the leading causes of
blindness, xerophthalmia, a serious disease
resulting from lack of vitamin A, which destroys
the sight of 300,000 children annually.
During the past year, HKI has helped initiate
measures to save the sight of nearly 16 million
children at risk from this destructive disease in
developing countries.
Bangladesh: With a population of 90 million
people living in an area the size of Wisconsin,
Bangladesh is one of the poorest nations.
Malnutrition, disease, and death at an early age
are facts of life.
Last year, over 30 million high-dose capsules of
vitamin A were distributed to 62 percent of the
estimated 18 million children whose inadequate
diet makes them the most likely victims of nutri-
tional blindness. This HKI-assisted program is
reducing - and is aimed, ultimately, to eradicate
- the 17,000 cases of nutritional blindness
reported every year in Bangladesh.
HKI also strengthened this blindness-fighting
program in Bangladesh by:
. improving early detection and treatment in
clinics and pediatric wards;
. expanding education programs for mothers to
alert them to the importance of healthy diets
and the warning signs of nutritional blindness;
. helping increase the distribution of vitamin A
capsules to reach more children at risk, through
house-to-house visits by 12,000 field workers.
Blindness is an added problem for those who suffer from
malnutrition in Bangladesh. (WHO Photo)
Source: https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/docs/tzgv0228

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