DHAKA, May 10 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh began a massive campaign from Saturday to provide millions of children with vitamin A and de-worming tablets.

    United Naions Children's Fund (UNICEF) said tens of thousands of health workers and volunteers will fan out across the country to run 140,000 centers, including many makeshift ones. They hope to provide vitamin A to about 19 million children ages one to five.

    Seventeen million aged 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 diarrhea, UNICEF said in a statement, adding that two doses per year of vitamin A could save thousands of lives.

    The campaign is a collaboration among the Bangladesh government, UNICEF, Canadian International Development Agency and the World Health Organization.

    Impoverished Bangladesh, with a population of 140 million, has a poor health management system.

    But the country has staged massive vaccination programs against polio and other dangerous diseases in recent years.