War against malnutrition

Today is World Health Day. It is a good time to reflect on the health of our people. And to remind ourselves that we still need to wage a war against malnutrition. So I’m reproducing what we discussed last November on this serious problem: Six weeks ago, the Annual Health Bulletin announced that 37% of our children are stunting, that 4.6% of them are wasting, and that 11.1% are underweight. This week, we learnt that the Right to Food Assessment Study concluded that 26.6% of our households are undernourished. That would also roughly mean that about a quarter of…

On the warpath

Six weeks ago, the Annual Health Bulletin announced that 37% of our children are stunting, that 4.6% of them are wasting, and that 11.1% are underweight. This week, we learnt that the Right to Food Assessment Study concluded that 26.6% of our households are undernourished. That would also roughly mean that about a quarter of our population is undernourished. The study, it seems, was conducted sometime last year by FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture. And recently, the Basic Health Worker in Chali has reported that "the number of malnourished children under the age of five in Chali geog…