Ad hoc approach to malnutrition 'no help'

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 05/06/2006 11:23 AM

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government's piecemeal approach to malnutrition is doing nothing to help the millions of children nationwide from getting sick from a lack of good food, activists say.

Data released by the Solidarity Network for Malnourished Children shows that malnutrition remains a serious problem in East Nusa Tenggara (13,251 people), West Java (107,500) and Banten (10,000).

Ironically, two of the worst-affected provinces -- West Java and Banten -- are fertile lands, known locally as the country's ""rice barns"".

The network said children remained dangerously undernourished in these areas, because the central government was leaving the local administrations to deal with the problem, even when cases of malnutrition were on the increase.

Despite a show of concern by officials when malnutrition cases reached the media, the government still lacked a comprehensive national strategy to fight malnutrition, it said.

Asiah, an Indonesian Women's Coalition activist, engaged in helping malnourished children in Bone regency, South Sulawesi, said Wednesday that severe malnutrition cases in Bone had increased from 40 in 2005 to 218 children so far this year.

""The government only provides food for malnourished children at certain times,"" she said. ""They do not monitor the victims' conditions after that, and the efforts stop when all the supplementary food supplies are exhausted.""

She said the emergency food usually lasted for only two weeks, while the malnourished children should be watched and treated continuously for at least six months until they achieved normal weights.

Solidarity Network coordinator Siti Musdah Mulia said the government must create a sustainable plan for fighting malnutrition.

""All this time, the government has taken only short-term measures in response to what is an emergency situation, without considering the actions required to prevent a potential problem in the future,"" she said.

Inggar Pertiwi, a graduate of the faculty of medicine at a Padjajaran University, Bandung, recently reported that many children in remote areas remained underweight although supplementary food for the malnourished had been properly distributed by local health centers.

""We found that other family members consume the supplementary foods, due to their low incomes,"" she said. ""Some malnourished children also suffer from other diseases.""

She said children from low-income families were usually admitted to the hospital only after they got sick from other diseases, such as diarrheal infections and measles.

The United Nations Children's Fund reported recently that Indonesia ranked the worst in the world in terms of nutrition, putting the country alongside Nigeria and Ethiopia with an estimated six million undernourished people. UNICEF also estimated 1.6 million children here suffer from some level of malnutrition.

UNICEF executive director Ann Veneman told Reuters poor countries' slow progress in reducing malnutrition could threaten the realization of a UN goal to halve the number of undernourished children worldwide by 2015.

Currently there are about 146 million children under five who are severely underweight worldwide, according to UNICEF. (02)

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