ISLAMABAD: One in five children in Pakistan is wasted or have low weight for height while one in ten children is severely wasted, a condition that increase a child’s risk of death by over 10%, Caretaker Federal Health Minister Dr. Nadeem Jan said, adding that Pakistan is also among the countries with the highest burdens of low-birth weight babies, with a national average of 22.7%.
“The high population growth, rapid urbanization, inflation, global crises, socioeconomic impact of Covid-19, compounded by suboptimal feeding and caring practices are driving the child wasting in Pakistan”, Dr. Nadeem Jan said while addressing the global Food Security Summit in London on Tuesday.
The health minister claimed that there was highest level of resolve and a strong political will to address the challenge posed by malnutrition in Pakistan, adding that on the issue of malnutrition, Pakistan offers a clear vision, firm political will, reasonable capacities, trained community level work force and the whole of governance approach to address this issue, he remarked.
“The government of Pakistan welcomes an initiative for enhanced global partnership on tackling global under-nutrition issues and finding new ways of working to deliver results”, Dr. Jan said and expressed gratitude to the British, Somalian, UAE govts, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and other partners for organizing the Global Food Security Summit.
Despite some significant progress that Pakistan made in several social sectors, Pakistan is still battling with very high levels of under-nutrition, he deplored. “We have deficiencies in supply inflows; for turning the tide of this malnutrition in Pakistan $150 million per year minimum is required to meet the challenge”, said the health minister and extended special thanks to Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) for support of $10 million.
“There are certain lessons from history we must be cognizant of; we propose that the best course forward would be sustainability and continuum of policies, political will, donors will, advocacy coupled with inclusive, innovative, integrated government based programming”, Dr. Nadeem Jan maintained.
The health minister said to reduce and maintain childhood wasting to at least less than 15% by 2025, for Pakistan, as committed in Global Action Plan to prevent and manage child wasting, a change in strategic shift and approach is required from relying only on the treatment of children with severe wasting to a deliberate action to prevent and early detect wasting among children by adopting a systems approach.
Accordingly, the government of Pakistan has taken some concrete actions to address the wasting agenda, and these includes a paradigm shift and remodeling programme from treatment centric to preventive, detective and curative centric, he observed.
Applying the simplified guidelines for wasting management to increase the coverage and early identification of wasting cases, support in enhancing the local capacity to produce Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), unlocking the Nutrition Matching Fund in Punjab and Sindh, and including wasting management in the Conditional Cash Transfer programme for the poorest of the poor under BISP Nashonuma Programme were some other measures being taken, he added.
“Government is committed to further strengthen the implementation and monitoring of the strategic shift from treatment to prevention of malnutrition, thereby to bring down the caseload of wasting children. Accordingly, necessary additional funding shall be allocated that will be channeled towards strengthening the prevention, early detection, and management of wasting, including the local procurement of RUTF”, he assured the participants of the summit.