Prevalence of ocular signs and subclinical vitamin A deficiency and its determinants among rural pre-school children in India.

Objective: To assess the magnitude and determinants of vitamin A deficiency (VAD) and coverage of vitamin A supplementation (VAS) among pre-school children.

Design: A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out by adopting a multistage, stratified, random sampling procedure.

Setting: Rural areas of eight states in India.

Subjects: Pre-school children and their mothers were covered.

Results: A total of 71,591 pre-school children were clinically examined for ocular signs of VAD. Serum retinol concentrations in dried blood spots were assessed in a sub-sample of 3954 children using HPLC. The prevalence of Bitot spots was 0·8%. The total ocular signs were significantly higher (P < 0·001) among boys (2·6%) compared with girls (1·9%) and in older children (3-4 years) compared (P < 0·001) with younger (1-2 years), and were also high in children of labourers, scheduled castes and illiterate mothers. The odds of having Bitot spots was highest in children of scheduled caste (OR = 3·8; 95% CI 2·9, 5·0), labourers (OR = 2·9; 95% CI 2·1, 3·9), illiterate mothers (OR = 2·7; 95% CI 2·2, 2·3) and households without a sanitary latrine (OR = 5·9; 95% CI 4·0, 8·7). Subclinical VAD (serum retinol level <20 μg/dl) was observed in 62% of children. This was also relatively high among scheduled caste and scheduled tribe children. The rate of coverage of VAS was 58%.

Conclusions: The study revealed that VAD is a major nutritional problem and coverage of VAS was poor. The important determinants of VAD were illiteracy, low socio-economic status, occupation and poor sanitation. Strengthening the existing VAS programme and focused attention on dietary diversification are essential for prevention of VAD.