Government prepares steps to ease malnutrition

Rendi A. Witular and Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta/Surabaya

The government will soon dispatch food supplement packages to thousands of malnourished children in provinces nationwide and also plans measures to improve regional economies, the Vice President says.

"We have prepared a comprehensive policy to prevent cases of malnutrition from recurring. The government has a short-term, medium-term and long-term solution to the problem," Jusuf Kalla said on Friday.

Immediate measures would include preparing sufficient facilities in local hospitals and community health centers to treat malnourished children, Kalla said.

The government would then dispatch food supplements, such as biscuits, vitamins and milk, that would be given free of charge to thousands of children from poor families in the province, he said.

In the long-run, the government would help poor communities revive their economies by providing farmers with free seeds, Kalla said.

Malnutrition in West Nusa Tenggara made the headlines recently after the local administration revealed that eight children aged under five years old had died of marasmus, or advanced malnutrition. The province, which is rich in horticulture, is in the country's rice belt and is a major rice exporter.

The province's health agency has reported 338 cases of advanced malnutrition since January.

Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari said malnutrition was commonplace in Indonesia, affecting about 8 percent of about 20 million children in the country under five years old.

Siti said the central government had sent medical experts to the provinces to deal with the problem. She also called for local governments to revive the Integrated Health Posts (Posyandu) popular during the Soeharto era.

Siti said a lack of awareness about health and nutrition was also partly to blame for the malnutrition in the country.

UNICEF data revealed that the number of children aged below five years old who regularly visited the organizations' health posts had constantly declined from 1997 to 2000, Siti said. During that period, the number of malnourished children went up.

Siti spoke after presenting an award to a team of doctors at the Dr. Soetomo Hospital on Friday for their efforts to separate conjoined twins in Surabaya. One of the twins died after doctors decided to transplant his healthy liver to his brother.

At the event, the East Java provincial health agency head Bambang Giatno denied reports suggesting 1,700 children under five in the province were suffering from marasmus, mostly in Situbondo and Bondowoso regencies.

"We have verified the reports. It turns out that the children are malnourished, but there are no marasmus cases in the province," he said.

There were also cases of malnourished children in Kediri, the home to cigarette giant Gudang Garam, he said.

Two other health officials, Slamet Santoso and Muklas Udin, said the agency remained on alert for possible marasmus cases and had already taken steps to help malnourished children.