About the Authors

Arnaud Laillou

alaillou@gainhealth.org

Affiliation Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Geneva, Switzerland

Frank Wieringa

Affiliation Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), UMR Nutripass IRD-UM2-UM1, Montpellier, France

Thuy Nga Tran

Affiliation National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hanoi, Vietnam

Pham Thuy Van

Affiliation National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hanoi, Vietnam

Bach Mai Le

Affiliation National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hanoi, Vietnam

Sonia Fortin

Affiliation Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), UMR Nutripass IRD-UM2-UM1, Montpellier, France

Thi Hop Le

Affiliation National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hanoi, Vietnam

Regina Moench Pfanner

Affiliation Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Geneva, Switzerland

Jacques Berger

Affiliation Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), UMR Nutripass IRD-UM2-UM1, Montpellier, France

Competing Interests

Bel group is a private company (http://www.bel-group.com/). Bel group was not a participant body of the study and did not participate in any phase of the study including protocol design, data collection, data analysis and publication. None of the researchers and authors of the manuscript have been employed or contracted by Bel group. The financial contribution of Bel was 10,000 USD (over a total budget of 300,000 USD) to support the National Institute of Nutrition in Hanoi, which is a national Vietnamese structure under the Ministry of Health, for the analysis of calcium and vitamin D. Moreover the publication is not related to any patent, product in development or marketed products. This has been reported in the cover letter to support our statement of no conflict of interest. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AL FW TNT PTV BML THL RMP JB. Performed the experiments: TNT BML FW. Analyzed the data: AL JB FW SF. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TNT BML FW. Wrote the paper: AL JB FW RMP.