LONG-TERM ORAL SUPPLEMENTATION WITH IRON IS NOT HARMFUL FOR YOUNG-CHILDREN IN A POOR COMMUNITY OF BANGLADESH

The effect of long-term oral iron supplementation on morbidity due to diarrhea, dysentery and respiratory infections in 349 children, aged 2 -48 mo, living in a poor community of Bangladesh, was evaluated in thi s double-blind study. The treatment group received 125 mg of ferrous g luconate (15 mg elemental iron) plus multivitamins and the controls re ceived only multivitamins, daily for 15 mo. House-to-house visits were made on alternate days by trained community health workers for record ing symptoms and duration of illnesses and for monitoring medicine int ake. Seventy-six percent of the children continued the syrup for over 1 y. No untoward effects were noticed in either treatment group. The a ttack rates for diarrhea, dysentery and acute respiratory tract infect ions (ARI) were 3, 3 and 5 episodes per child per year, respectively. Each episode of diarrhea lasted a mean of 3 d, and those of dysentery and ARI, 5 d. The two treatment groups did not differ in the number of episodes, mean duration of each episode, or total days of illnesses d ue to diarrhea, dysentery and ARI. However, a 49% greater number of ep isodes of dysentery was observed with iron supplementation in a subset of the study children who were less than 12 mo old (P = 0.03). The re sults of this study suggest that long-term oral iron supplementation i s not harmful for older children in a poor community. Further studies are needed to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of iron administrati on in young infants.