DHAKA: Bangladesh will stage a massive campaign on Saturday to provide millions of children with vitamin A and de-worming tablets.

The Unicef said on Friday tens of thousands of health workers and volunteers will fan out across the country and man 140,000 centres, including many makeshift ones. They hope to provide vitamin A to about 19 million children ages one to five, while 17 million kids ages two to five-years-old are targeted for de-worming tablets.

Vitamin A deficiency increases the risk of child deaths from diseases such as measles and diarrhoea, Unicef said in a statement, adding that two doses of year of vitamin A could save thousands of lives. Impoverished Bangladesh, with a population of 150 million, has a poor health management system, but the South Asian nation has staged massive vaccination programmes against polio and other dangerous diseases in recent years.