Pakistan is rated 6th amongst the countries, where iodine deficiency is a serious public health problem and up to 90-percent population of hilly areas of NWFP, AJK and Northern Areas, besides numerous pockets of population in Punjab is iodine deficient.
This was stated by Dr Sadia Assad Programme Co-ordinator National Alliance for Promotion of Universal Salt Iodisation (USI) for Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDDs) Control while talking to Business Recorder with reference to Global IDDs Day being celebrated in different parts of the World including Pakistan on Friday.
According to her, iodine deficiency is the world's most prevalent yet easily preventable cause of brain damage. The iodine deficiency disorder results in spectrum of health consequences that includes goiter, impaired physical growth, mental retardation and cretinism. The micro nutrient deficiency disorder is most commonly seen among poor, pregnant women and pre-school children, causing serious threat to the economy of developing countries.
It may be mentioned that as per statistics of National Nutrition of Pakistan, 50 million people are suffering from iodine deficiency, 6.5 million of whom are facing severe type of deficiency (cretinism) and the gravity is reflected in the striking figure of more than 4 million children born every year unprotected against brain damage.
Dr Sadia Assad maintained that in the developing world nearly 20 percent population suffers from iodine deficiency. The most recent National Nutrition Survey shows that 22.9-percent school aged children and 36.5-percent of mothers of children Under-5 are severely iodine deficient. Utilisation of iodised salt at the household level is only 17 percent, which is the lowest as compared to all the countries in the South Asian Region, she said. Approximately more than 50 percent population of the country is at risk of IDDs, she added.
She further said that iodine deficiency is the greatest but most preventable cause of mental retardation in the world. According to the World Health Organisation, iodine deficiency currently affects billions of people around the world; it has left 50 million people brain damaged. About 30 million are believed to be intellectually impaired due to IDDs
It may be noted that the 1990 World Summit for children set the goal of eliminating iodine deficiencies by 2000. Tremendous progress has been made through salt iodination-the proportion of households in the developing world consuming adequately-iodised salt has risen from less than 20-percent in 1990 to over 70-percent today. Nearly 91 million children a year are now protected against learning impairment related to iodine deficiency and losses in learning capability. China has been one of the most phenomenal success stories of the 1990s, with iodination rates rising from 39-percent to 95 percent in a span of five years. Pakistan is among the nations of the world that highlighted the public health awareness to eliminate IDDs by the year 2000. Despite this, only 17 percent of the overall population uses iodised salt in our country, which is incredibly low even if compared with countries with similar socio-economic conditions like Bangladesh (78 percent) and Nepal (93 percent).