18 January 2004	Sunday	25 Ziqa'ad 1424

PESHAWAR, Jan 17: The NWFP health department has plannedto launch universal wheat enrichment project with the financial assistance of Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to reduce iron deficiency among the children and women.

"Initially, the pilot project would be launched at Peshawar and Nowshera, which would be extended to the NWFP and the whole country by the year 2013," said Dr Fayyaz Ali, assistant director of reproductive health.

The project "Enriching Food and Enriching Lives", would be launched by CIDA/ The Micronutrient Initiative (MI).

The National Nutrition Survey report of 2002-3 has been made as baseline for launching the project, which says that 30 per cent of the children in Pakistan had iron deficiency anaemia, whereas 50 per cent of the women suffered from the same disorder.

He said the WHO's recent report has cited iron, vitamin A and iodine deficiencies as three of the most prevalent and critical nutrient deficiency.

Dr Ali said malnutrition had affected 14.8 per cent children, stunning in 35.5 per cent, low birth weight in 30 per cent, anaemia in 29 per cent, iron deficiency anaemia in mothers 50 per cent, vitamin A sub-clinical deficiency in 25 per cent, iodine deficiency in 20-30 per cent and zinc deficiency in 41.4 per cent mothers and 37 per cent children.

According to National Nutrition Survey, 1.2 per cent of the children had visible goitre, 1.3 per cent palpable goitre and 22.9 per cent urinary excretion due to iodine deficiency, while 9.9 per cent of the pregnant women suffered from vitamin A deficiency and 7.8 per cent from night blindness.

He said that the factors leading to malnutrition were poverty, debt burden, drought, stagnant agricultural growth, low literacy, poor access to health facilities and lack of birth- spacing.

According to him, 24 wheat mill owners in Peshawar and 10 in Nowshera had been made partners to implement the project. These mill owners would be imparted training in flour fortification (FF), quality control and micro-feeders at the roller flour mills would be installed at the cost of Rs 3.4 million. Likewise, he said that a monitoring and evaluation system be put in place to assess the impact of FF on anaemia in order to replicate the project in other parts of the province to be followed by the country.

For this purpose, a system has been developed for the capacity-building of the local health professionals for testing and monitoring of the fortified flour. He said that 124 kg of wheat is consumed per person annually in NWFP, whereas the total annual consumption of wheat was 3.38 million tons which if fortified at the mills could bring down the incidence of anaemia among children and women to a great deal.

Citing the study carried out by National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), he said that fortificants, i.e., ferrous sulphate and folic acid will be mixed with the flour before marketing for which micro feeders would be installed at the mills.

Nutrition is an important component of theMillennium Development Goals of the UN, which should be overcome, he said, adding that target groups were urban and semi-urban population, women in children-producing age, pre-school and school-going children and adult men and women.

He said the objective of the project is to minimize iron deficiency anaemia in children from 30 per cent to 10 per cent and in mothers from 50 per cent to 18 per cent by the year 2013.