Ignorance worsens malnutrition: Farid
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Health Farid Anfasa Moeloek said on Wednesday malnutrition problems found among the country's children were not only due to economic deprivation but also because of a lack of knowledge on health issues.
The minister said his conclusion was based on recent tours of various regions where he found, among other things, a civil servant who had stopped breast-feeding her three-month-old baby and was instead bottle-feeding the child with sweetened tea.
"I myself witnessed that it is not only economic problems... (malnutrition) is partially because of mothers' ignorance," Farid said after attending a six-hour monthly Cabinet meeting on people's welfare at the Bina Graha presidential office.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) has predicted that the economic crisis could result in 95.8 million people -- or 48 percent of the country's total population of 202 million -- living below the poverty level by year's end.
ILO marks the poverty line in daily calorie intake at 2,200 calories. In daily earnings, those making less than US$1 per person in a family in urban areas and 80 U.S. cents in rural areas (at a conversion rate of Rp 2,300 to the dollar) are considered poor.
The country's per capita income has shrunk from about $1,100 before the crisis hit the country in July last year to less than $300. The media has been recently showing pictures of malnourished Indonesian children -- images which had, until now, hardly ever been aired.
Antara reported on Wednesday that more than 460,000 people in 10 regencies in South Kalimantan were facing severe food shortages, mostly in the capital, Banjarmasin, and in Tapin regency.
Doyo Pudjadi, an official of the provincial Ministry of Social Services office, told the official news agency that the World Food Program (WFP) was planning how best to address the problem.
"I have received information from Jakarta that the aid plan is still being discussed," he said.
Central Java officials said last month that eight million infants in the province alone would suffer from food deprivation.
"This is not an economic matter but also a problem of ignorance, education and social cultural dilemmas," the minister said.
Farid announced last month that the government would soon launch a Rp 1.37 trillion (US$114 million) supplementary food program for pregnant women and children under five in 140 regencies. "Each family will receive Rp 10,000 per year," he had said. (prb)