Clinical Nutrition

Lesson 6: Vitamin A Deficiency

Vitamin A deficiency and infection

Deficiency of vitamin A predisposes individuals to severe infection. Vitamin A deficiency and infection interact within a vicious cycle, whereby one exacerbates and increases the vulnerability to the other. The interaction of vitamin A deficiency with diarrhoea, measles and respiratory disease is well established and there is increasing evidence of its association with HIV infection and malaria.

Conjunctival Xerosis	Keratomalacia	Corneal Xerosis	Bitot spot