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Children

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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Vitamin A supplementation on child morbidity

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Haidar, J., D. Tsegaye, et al. (2003). "Vitamin A supplementation on child morbidity." East African Medical Journal 80(1): 17-21.

Objective: To determine the impact of vitamin A supplementation on child morbidity and nutritional status.

Design: A community based follow-up (interventional) in nature.

Setting: Two randomly selected Weredas (districts) of Tigray, North Ethiopia were studied between 1996 and 1997.

Subjects: Four thousand seven hundred and seventy children aged between six and 72 months, selected using a multi-stage sampling procedure were enrolled and clinically assessed for xerophthalmia and nutritional status. A sub-sample of these children (n = 281) was further assessed for their serum retinol levels.

Main outcome measures: The pre and post intervention data on xerophthalmia, morbidity, nutritional status and serum retinol levels were compared.

Results: Vitamin A capsule coverage of 87% in all the villages of the Weredas and a statistically significant (p < 0.05) reduction in the prevalence of Bitot's spot (from 1.5 to 0.5), fever (from 29.8 to 14.2), diarrhoea (from 30.2 to 18.2), oedema (from 9.2 to 3.2), measles (from 14.0 to 6.2), conjunctivitis (from 10.2 to 3.0), stunted (from 64.2 to 42.7), wasted (from 12.8 to 2.5) and underweight (from 46.2 to 24.2). The proportion of children with normal serum retinol concentration (> 0.7 μmole/L) has also improved significantly (from 36.8 to 56.2).

Conclusion: In conclusion, the significant improvement in morbidity and nutritional status that followed the intervention programme although encouraging, it still indicates the importance of coupling periodic provision of Vitamin A capsules with nutrition education.