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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Anaemia is a public health emergency that needs to be addressed immediately -Alok Kumar & Vedeika Shekhar

Anaemia is a public health emergency that needs to be addressed immediately -Alok Kumar & Vedeika Shekhar

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published Published on May 20, 2019   modified Modified on May 20, 2019
-The Indian Express

Fortifying staples with essential nutrients holds the key in fight against anaemia. The daily consumption of iron rich dark green leafy vegetables has reduced from 64 per cent to 48 per cent of the population in the last decade.

India has been able to dramatically reduce the number of people living in extreme poverty from 306 million people living on less than $1.90 (on a PPP basis) a day in 2011 to 48 million today. However, it is puzzling as to why the country has been unable to show a similar dynamism in its record against malnutrition. Despite major government interventions — including providing highly subsidised foodgrains to the poorest 67 per cent of the population under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), a free Mid-day Meal Scheme (MDM) that targets around 100 million students in government schools and a supplementary nutrition programme through the ICDS network — the country is home to the largest number of malnourished children in the world.

In the decade between 2005-06 and 2015-16, stunting declined at the rate of 0.9 per cent per annum. Though anaemia among children has declined, it affects every second child in the country. There has been no perceptible decline in anaemia among 15 to 49-year old women; it affects around 60 per cent of them. This public health emergency needs to be addressed immediately.

Poverty, gender disparity, poor sanitation, low health and nutrition service coverage and poor nutritional intake — particularly an iron-deficient diet — continue to impede our fight against anaemia. The daily consumption of iron rich dark green leafy vegetables has reduced from 64 per cent to 48 per cent of the population in the last decade. Many, in fact, argue that the NFSA’s focus on wheat and rice has forced millets — traditional source for iron and minerals — out of the market. The government’s iron supplementation programme to overcome IDA has led to only 30 per cent of pregnant women consuming iron and folic acid tablets. This compels us to think of simpler and effective strategies like fortification of food staples with essential micronutrients like iron and vitamin.

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The Indian Express, 20 May, 2019, https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/anaemia-cases-india-poverty-national-food-security-act-mid-day-meal-scheme-5736506/


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