In a conference to review the national food and nutrition policy in Sierra Leone in early April, Deputy Health and Sanitation Minister Mohamed Daudis Koroma announced an overall improvement in the nutritional status of children under the age of five. Koroma addressed a body of participants that included the Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kisito Daoh, the UNICEF Nutrition Manager Sefano Sebele, and the Senior Permanent Secretary Ministry of Health Edward Bai Kamara. The conference was organized with support from the Ministry of Health and UNICEF.
Koroma described many causes of malnutrition in Sierra Leone, including poverty and lack of education. Koroma also stressed the need for a plan of action that would address malnutrition’s effect on infection in children. As children become more and more vulnerable to simple infections due to malnutrition, the mortality rate of children under five continues to be the highest in the world (click here for UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children report). For the three days of the conference, Koroma encouraged participants to create goals in the areas of agriculture, livestock, fisheries, forestry, and health education to fully analyze the state of nutrition in Sierra Leone.
Click here for WHO child malnutrition estimates in Sierra Leone.
Dr. Daoh emphasized the toll that malnutrition takes on women and young children. Dr. Daoh hoped to create a document that would outline the needs of the people of Sierra Leone. Such a document would then be used to create health policies that would address malnutrition. Sebele discussed the food and nutrition security, describing it as a “critical challenge”. Kamara went a step further, describing food as a “human right”. Kamara also noted that the Ministry plays a leading role in the process, as malnutrition belies healthy development of the country.
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Conference Addressing Malnutrition Hopes to Influence Health Policy
April 14th, 2009Plumpy’nut: The Miracle Food
February 9th, 2009In 1997, Dr. Andre Briand noticed that the nutritional balance of proteins, lipids, and calories in a popular chocolate spread was similar to therapeutic meals used to treat children suffering from severe malnutrition. Two years later, Plumpy’Nut was born. (click here for transcript of an interview with Dr. Briand)
Dr. Briand, a French pediatrician, had been searching for a method to supply malnourished children with the nutritional equivalent of therapies recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). While these suggested diets worked extremely well, it was impossible to reach a wide population of children because the special combination of meal powder, oil, sugar, vitamins and minerals required the use of clean drinking water to prepare (an ingredient often unavailable in villages throughout the world).
Plumpy’nut is a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) contained in individual packets, usually foil pouches. RUTF packets are administered to children regularly, and requires no addition of any materials, which reduces the risk of bacterial infection. Plumpy’nut is also convenient for home administration: allowing health workers to follow the progress of children receiving treatment, but also freeing space in normally overflowing treatment centers and hospitals. Plumpy’nut is also being produced in Africa, which reduces the cost of distribution and creates a sense of self-sufficiency and control among the populations that need food therapy the most.
Anderson Cooper interviewed Dr. Milton Tectonidis, a nutrition specialist with Doctors Without Borders for 60 Minutes. Dr. Tectonidis states, “It’s a revolution in nutritional affairs. … Now we have something. It is like an essential medicine.”
