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ASSOCHAM holds Webinar to Address Severe Acute Malnutrition

New Delhi, 12th August 2021: Malnutrition continues to be one of India’s major problems and is a leading risk factor of death in children younger than 5 years accounting for 68.2% deaths, according to the Global Nutrition Report, 2020. UNICEF predicts 3 lakhs children may die in India over the next six months due to reductions in routine health service coverage levels and an increase in child wasting, based on a recent report in Lancet research.

Malnutrition was still an epidemic in India, particularly for children, even before the pandemic struck.  Covid-19 presents a danger of further slowing down decades of progress made in the area of decreasing malnutrition. In reducing the risk of diseases, nutrition plays a key role. The lack of good nutrition or low-micronutrient diet results in malnutrition that is preventing child growth, brain and physical development. Several government initiatives such as the Acute Malnutrition Community Management, POSHAN Abhiyan have helped to boost child nutritional status in India by offering a low cost of staples in the PDS and mid-day meal services.

In light of the above, ASSOCHAM is organized a Webinar to address Severe Acute Malnutrition on August 12, 2021.

The webinar was aimed at creating nutrition awareness- educating the masses on the importance of basic nutrition and how it will help sustain good health, carrying out nutrition campaign to assess the nutritional status of the children and understanding proper nutrition interventions for SAM and MAM children. It also provided a platform for the industry and government to come together and discuss the current status of SAM in the country and ways to overcome it.

The welcome address and the context setting were done by Mr. Arun Mishra, Head, Global Nutrition Regulatory Affairs, Unilever & Co-chair National Food Processing Council, ASSOCHAM and the Inaugural session Included Mr. Naveen Jain (IAS), Secretary, Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department, Government of Rajasthan and Brig (Dr) K Venkatnarayan, MD (Pediatrics, AFMC), DNB (Pediatrics), DM (Neonatology, AIIMS), MNAMS & Officer on Special Duty, National Institution for Transforming India, NITI Aayog.

Mr. Jain shared his hands on experience while handling the health department in Rajasthan and said that he was lucky to have been associated with the POSHAN Program in Rajasthan. He launched POSHAN 1 for about 10000 children. He told about the various challenges faced during the same. People in the villages were reluctant to bring children to the MTC’s as there was loss of pay of the day’s labour, the responsibility of doing household chores was on the women on the house and were not being fulfilled as they were with the child in the care facility. To overcome this challenge a compensation scheme was initiated for the parents who would bring the children to the facility for treatment. They would provide transportation cost to the parents and will only provide food for the child for 1 week so they would have to come back to take more ration for the child. He emphasized on the importance of incentives for the field workers so that they would feel motivated to keep working.

Dr. Venkatnarayan thanked ASSOCHAM for the opportunity and shared a very detailed presentation on the need for a holistic approach towards SAM. He said that it is very important to look at the bigger picture and everything that needs to be done should be done while keeping in mind on the ways to optimize human potential. He emphasized on the importance of the first 1000 days and proper nutrition since conception as it the most important time for brain growth and development for a child.  There is need to focus on care during pregnancy, breast feeding rates, supplementary food, kangaroo mother care, food diversification.  It is important to give a nurturing environment for early child development. He shared a few challenges and gaps involving the efficiency and effectiveness of any program. Then there is always room for improvement of quality and regular checks for quality assurance of any scheme which is implemented. Proper trainings must be provided to the people working in the health and child care facilities for better implementation of the programs. He mentioned a few challenges faced in facility-based care including uncomplicated MAM children are admitted at the NRC’s, high opportunity cost for the parents, cost to the state, lack of manpower and attention, children discharged before meeting the criteria and so on. He emphasized on the need of multisectoral integration to overcome this problem of SAM.

The technical discussion included the industry experts as well as views from the development partners including Dr. Alka Jadhav, Professor Pediatrics, In charge of Pediatric Gastro-enterology, LTMMC Sion Mumbai, Mr. Ravi Bhatnagar, Director, External Affairs and Partnerships- South Asia, Reckitt & Co Chairperson, ASSOCHAM, CSR Council, Dr. Pawankumar Patil, Technical Director, Action Against Hunger, Dr. Sujeet Ranjan, Public Health & Nutrition Expert, Ex-CNFS, Dr A. Laxmaiah, Scientist, National Institute of Nutrition, Mr. Arun Om Lal, Senior Vice President, Hexagon Nutrition, Co – Founder, CMAM Association of India and Mr. Morten Hansen, MD, (Compact India Pvt. Ltd.), GC Rieber Compact AS, Co – Founder, CMAM Association of India. The session was moderated by Ms. Nirupama Sharma, Joint Director, ASSOCHAM

The technical discussion was around Approaches for management of SAM at in-facility level, Industry Initiatives for the management of SAM, Prevention and Treatment for SAM, Interventions for management of SAM during COVID, Consensus Building for the Management of SAM, Policy interventions for effective management of SAM in the community, and also India’s contribution to managing SAM globally.

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