The nutritional flour will be available in the market by July 2005 to make up for the deficiency in food intake, the main cause for anemia, low weight, low height, mal-nourishment and adverse affects on the metabolic processes. Ministry of Health and Nutrition Deputy Director General Dr Mohammad Haroon Jehangir Khan told Business Recorder here.
He said the Health Ministry, Pakistan Flour Mills Association, Micro nutrient Initiative (MI) and Swiss-based Global Alliance for Improving Nutrition (Gain) are working on a plan to start production of fortified flour with iron and folic acids as a diet by the majority of population suffering from nutritional deficiencies.
He said the government had already approved the National Nutrition Strategic Plan to improve nutrition through primary health care, education and public awareness in addition to intervention like provision of fortified food, food safety, social behaviour change and bio-food diversity.
He said a National Fortification Alliance of senior officials of health, food, agriculture, industry, planning commission, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Flour Mills Associations, Gain, MI, WHO, and other stakeholders had been formed to implement the National Nutrition Strategic Plan.
According to the latest national nutrition survey of Pakistan, the major nutritional problems here include low birth weight due to poor maternal nutrition, and protein energy malnutrition and anemia across various population groups and geographic areas.
The survey revealed that while almost the entire population was at risk of one or the other form of mal-nutritional. Children under the age of five years, and pregnant and lactating women are the most vulnerable.
More than 55 percent of young children and 45 percent of pregnant and lactating women suffered from anemia due to iron deficiency. More than 45 percent of children were found to have low weight for height.
The survey said in addition to iron, iodine, vitamin A deficiency, zinc deficiency was a public health problem, as the data from several pilot studies among at-risk infants and pregnant women indicated.