Vitamin A deficiency in the Sudan: a call for a surveillance system.

This short review summarizes all the published and unpublished reports on vitamin A deficiency in the Sudan in the last four decades. Different local terms used by people to indicate vitamin A deficiency were enlisted. There is evidence that vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in eastern Sudan and among communities from western and southern Sudan living around Greater Khartoum, who were displaced from their homelands because of drought, famine conditions and civil unrest. There are reports indicative of vitamin A deficiency problem in the central and the far western provinces. There were no reports from the northern provinces. The need for a surveillance system was discussed.