Community-level institutions can ensure that the burden of malnutrition is not aggravated during the pandemic. Explain (200 Words)
Refer - The Indian Express
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Vaishnavi 4 years
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IAS Parliament 4 years
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K. V. A 4 years
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IAS Parliament 4 years
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IAS Parliament 4 years
KEY POINTS
· As per, “The State of the World’s Children 2019, UNICEF”, before the COVID-19 outbreak, malnutrition was the cause of 69 per cent of the total deaths of children under five years. India was home to nearly half of the world’s “wasted” (low weight for height ratio) children.
· The report also highlighted that only 42 per cent of infants in the age group of six to 23 months were fed at adequate intervals, and only 21 per cent received an adequately diverse diet.
· The most recent nutrition strategy adopted by the Odisha government is “SOPAN”- Strategy for Odisha’s Pathway to Accelerated Nutrition. Implemented by the Women and Child Development and Mission Shakti Department, SOPAN has shown promise in achieving the state’s nutrition targets across 22 districts.
· Community-based crèches have been established for improved health management of children under three years. These crèches provide community-based management of SAM (CMAM), supervised feeding and counselling for mothers and children with moderate acute malnutrition.
· However, there is much scope for improvement in such state-level interventions. For instance, SAM management is driven by the Health department in some states and the department of Women and Child Development in others.
· This indicates a lack of ownership in addressing malnutrition at the governance level. Uniformity in the implementation framework at all levels needs to be adopted stringently to build an administrative will to address the burden of malnutrition. The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development has drafted guidelines for Community-Based Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) which will be finalised after consultations with all States.
· Given the dire situation of our nutrition indicators and the resource-crunch brought on by the pandemic, the best way forward would be to minimise the burden of malnutrition cases on hospitals by resolving less severe cases at the community level by engaging the frontline workforce such as anganwadi workers and institutions like the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres (NRCs) at the community level efficiently.
