ILOILO CITY -- The city government here, through its nutrition council, has devised strategies to address cases of malnutrition, city health officer Dr. Bernard Caspe said Thursday.
Such strategies, he said, include a feeding program and “adoption” by health personnel of malnourished children.
Some 439 of the city's 1,107 malnourished children whose ages range from zero to six years old are set to be rehabilitated.
Caspe said the malnutrition prevalence rate in the city is 1.84 percent, lower than the national target of around 5 percent.
The nutrition council was able to weigh under its “Operation Timbang” 61,485 of the 75,028 total pre-school population in the city. Of those weighed, 254 were found to be severely underweight while 853 were underweight.
“This is not alarming but as much, we wanted to address this problem,” Caspe said.
The city health officer said he wanted each personnel of the nutrition council to "adopt" a malnourished child to make sure that the kids are given the necessary intervention. The personnel would be made answerable if no improvement is seen on their adopted child at the end of the year.
This means they have to make a follow up on the children such as monitor the food they eat and the medical tests they need to undergo that are available in health centers, among others.
The names of the malnourished children will be provided to district health centers so they can be properly checked.
“They will be reevaluated to know their problem,” Caspe said.
He added that they have embarked on a feeding program using donated fortified rice. He said they hope to find other donors to provide ingredients and make their foods palatable.
Caspe said he would also be talking with the City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO) to train their personnel on the preparation of supplemental feeding. He said they wanted the foods being provided to all day care centers of the city to be uniform.
Nutritionists were also advised to teach parents how to prepare a well-balanced meal for their children. He noted that the feeding in day care centers is done only once a day up to six months. Thus, food preparation at home is critical.
Meanwhile, the city health officer is yet to know whether or not the barangay nutrition action plan (BNAT) will be implemented in city villages. He said that villages had a budget for the plan, which is supposed to be intended for feeding. (PNA)
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