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Katema links malnutrition to high poverty levels

COMMENT - Tax the mines, and money will be available. Better yet, start treating Zambia's copper as if it belongs to the people, and demand full compensation from the mines - or they will face nationalisation.

Katema links malnutrition to high poverty levels
By Fridah Nkonde
Sat 30 June 2012, 13:24 CAT

HIGH levels of poverty in Zambia have contributed to the 50 per cent of children who are malnourished, says Dr Joseph Katema.

Dr Katema, the Minister of Community Development, Mother and Child Health said in an interview that malnutrition in the country was not as a result of poor feeding methods on the part of the mothers but shortage of food.

"We cannot say that children are malnourished because mothers are ignorant on how to feed their children. All we can say is that the main driver of malnutrition is poverty in the country and there is need for us to tackle this problem in a more integrated approach by means of empowering women in communities," Dr Katema said.

He said there were a lot of vulnerable people in communities, noting the need for his ministry to help reduce poverty which causes malnutrition through empowerment programmes which he said had already been put in place.

Dr Katema said his ministry wanted to tackle malnutrition at household level and not at health centre level because most of the children were taken to the clinic late when malnutrition had already reached its advanced stage.

He said there were groups in communities that went door-to-door to identify children who were at the verge of suffering from malnutrition.

Dr Katema said going door-to-door initiatives helped the ministry to detect the signs of malnutrition and then put up interventions in the communities.

He said tackling the root cause of the malnutrition would help prevent malnutrition in children.

"The interventions we have put in place as a ministry will help us pull most families out of poverty and also fight malnutrition. Empowering women will help our ministry deal with malnutrition at household level. What we do not want as a ministry is to have children suffering from severe malnutrition. We just have to put a stop to that," Dr Katema said.

He said it was difficult for mothers to give their children balanced meals because most of them could not afford to buy proper food and that most families did not have three meals every day.

Dr Katema said the availability of food was cardinal to the fight against malnutrition.

Labels: JOSEPH KATEMA, MALNUTRITION, POVERTY

posted by MrK @ 12:13 AM