Fighting Malnutrition

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31378, 25 May 1967, Page 2

Fighting Malnutrition

(N.Z.P.A.-tteuter) LUSAKA (Zambia). President Kenneth Kaunda is leading a battle against malnutrition, Zambia’s second biggest childkiller. “This is a national scourge," he says of the ailment which is estimated to affect up to one-third of the country’s children under five years of age. “We are going to fight it, and I think we shall succeed.” The Government will set up a National Food and Nutrition Commission with top-level backing in a major effort to wipe out malnutrition. Supported by an advisory committee of specialists in medicine, nutrition, agriculture, sociology and education, the commission’s first job will be to determine the size of the problem. The Lusaka Hospital only began keeping full records of malnutrition deaths two months ago, and without accurate figures preventive work could be useless. Figures available show that between 25 and 30 per cent of Zambians under five suffer from malnutrition. It is the cause of IS per cent of all child deaths and a potent factor in child deaths from pneumonia and gastroenteritis. Properly fed, children who die from these diseases might have lived. In urban areas, 40 out of every 100 malnutrition victims are likely to die.

There is also the incalculable loss caused through the lethargy of the improperly fed school child’s inability to concentrate at a vital period and the loss of physical development which may never be fully overcome in later life. It is a growing problem. Zambia’s population is expanding at a yearly rate of 3.5 per cent and the proportion of infants and children rises all the time.

But experts who have studied the problem are convinced that it can be beaten, given the money and the organisation. Says one official: “Our babies are the healthiest in the world up to the age of six months, but then. ...” In infancy, the children are breast-fed. Then they are weaned on a diet of gruel, made from the local staple crop, normally ground maite or cassava.

These lack proteins, and in many cases the results are obvious in the form of distended bellies, wasting limbs, swollen ankles, scabs and stunted growth. Parental Ignorance The problem is largely one of parental ignorance. The mothers are well-intentioned. Young children are often given the same food as their parents. But they cannot digest it

Hie commission plans to concentrate small teams in specific areas of about 10,000 people to establish if there is malnutrition.

If malnutrition is found in an area, they will find out whether the proper corrective foods are available and, if not persuade villagers to grow them, and see that they are used.

Mothers will be shown how to prepare fish or meat so that it can be eaten by young children.

Actual production of the food is relatively easy. Zambia’s lakes and rivers can provide the fish, her land can support the cattle once the proper methods have been taught At the local level, the work will be done by community nurses or home economics specialists. It is estimated that 300 teams will be needed to cover the country. At present there is one.

Efforts to beat malnutrition have been made in Zambia in the past but they have generally failed for lack oit coordination at the top. Successful Effort

One that has been successful was inspired by the people of Nottingham, in England. As their part of a Freedom From Hunger campaign, they raised £40,000 to build and equip a fisheries school in a remote part of the country on the shores of Lake Kariba. In addition to the bush diet campaign, a big Government programme will be necessary

in the next few years to train caterers to man the country’s boarding schools, where hundreds of thousands of young Zambians are to be educated.

i Skilled manpower and ; money will be needed if the i drive is to succeed. Zambia ’ intends to approach the i United Nations for help totalling 750,000 dollars.