Kozhikode: Expired iron tablets given to students

KOZHIKODE: The  iron tablets (iron-folic acid supplements)  distributed annually to the schools, especially those having girl students in the district, will do more harm than good as these are ‘expired’ ones. The  tablets were provided by the government to reduce the anaemia among students under the programme ‘Weekly iron and folic acid supplementary programme.’ It may be recalled that  the overdosage of the tablets in some parts of the country had led to serious health consequences among students.  

A  teacher of an aided girls’  school in the district told DC, “Nearly 50 boxes of iron tablets reached our school a week ago. However,  many boxes for the high school section contained expired tablets. We reported it to the health department and handed over the boxes to the officials.  On Monday, we received the boxes with  fresh tablets,” she added. A high school principal of an aided school in a rural area in the district said, “ten  boxes had  50 packets of expired tablets. They were   meant for over 500 girl students  in the school. The department has apologised for the grave mistake,” he said.