Incomplete Module

In order to use this module effectively, first click on  the word Navigation - a hot link on the navigation bar above.  This will instruct provideguidance through the rest of the module.  Then follow in order (at least the first time through) to the  Introduction followed by Section 1 through Section 5.  All links will be accessed by clicking on the navigation bar as seen above.

The extent of micronutrient deficiencies is broadly well known.   Anemia affects around 2 billion people in the world, by WHO estimates (1997), about on third of the population, with women suffering most.  Judging by the extent of goiter, the usual sign of iodine deficiency, some 13% of the population or 740 million people, are disadvantaged because of lack of this nutrient, of which minute amounts are needed (WHO, 1999).  And vitamin A deficiency, while less common clinically, is present in sub-clinical form - increasing risks of ill-health and death - in at least a quarter of the children in developing countries (WHO, 1995; MI/UNICEF/Tulane, 1998). Moreover, these problems certainly overlap and interact, so that many people must have multiple deficiencies. 

The consequences of single micronutrient deficiencies, and the best means of controlling them are adequately established as a basis for advocacy and for effective control of the deficiencies.  For example, the US Institute of Medicine has recently issued a definitive publication covering the three major known deficiencies; and MI, the individual micronutrient groups like IVACG, and UN agencies, have all provided guidance on specific nutrients.  Overlap between deficiencies, and their interactions, have not so far received as much attention (Mason, et.al, 1999).