Newborn vitamin A dosing reduces the case fatality but not incidence of common childhood morbidities in South India.

Vitamin A supplementation reduces mortality in young children in areas of endemic vitamin A deficiency. However, it has no impact on the incidence of common morbidities. This discrepancy has been explained by an impact on case fatality, although with the exception of hospitalized measles cases, there is little direct evidence to support this hypothesis.

Impact of supplementing newborn infants with vitamin A on early infant mortality: community based randomised trial in southern India.

Objective: To assess the impact of supplementing newborn infants with vitamin A on mortality at age 6 months.

Design: Community based, randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trial.

Setting: Two rural districts of Tamil Nadu, southern India.