Indonesia gets its second Helen Keller Int'l award

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia is again recognized for its successful campaign against nutritional blindness (xerophthalmia) with the presentation of a letter of appreciation from the Helen Keller International (HKI) to the Ministry of Health.

John Palmer III, the executive director of HKI, a New York- based agency providing aid for blindness prevention, applauded the ministry for reducing the prevalence of xerophthalmia from 13 out of 1,000 people in 1978, to three out of 1,000 in 1992.

The first honor given was the Helen Keller International Award, in the form of "The Spirit of Helen Keller" statuette, presented to President Soeharto on behalf of the people of Indonesia during the commemoration of National Children's Day on July 23.

In his speech on Tuesday evening, Palmer said the late Helen Keller would have found Indonesia's success in controlling blindness due to vitamin A deficiency, especially among children, as a step closer to her dream of a "sighted world".

Some 15 years ago HKI began providing millions of vitamin A capsules to be distributed among children under five-years of age in Indonesia and has saved an estimated 28,000 children from blindness annually.

"If we enlarge this project so that it reaches some 60 percent of all children, then we can save 72,000 preschoolers from blindness due to Vitamin A deficiency every year," Palmer said.

Besides HKI, UNICEF has also distributed 45 million vitamin A capsules worth US$1 million for the 23 million children of Indonesia over the past 10 years.

In his acceptance speech, Minister of Health Dr. Sujudi shared the honor with his two predecessors, Suwardjono Surjaningrat and Adhyatma, who laid the strategy and policy of the vitamin A- deficiency control program.

Important issue

"Maintaining the control of nutritional blindness and continuing efforts to eliminate vitamin A deficiency has become an important issue here," he said.

"Programs will be focused on increasing the consumption of locally available vitamin A-rich foods and vitamin A-fortified foods," he promised.

Quoting a 1992 Household Survey result, Sujudi said the people's consumption of vitamin A-rich foods only meets 50 percent of the recommended daily allowances.

The program of distributing high dose vitamin A capsules will be maintained and integrated with other health services, he said.

Sujudi said each year, 13 million of under-fives must be reached by the vitamin A capsules program for the sake of their well being.

Through local health centers Puskesmas and Posyandu, the government distributes free vitamin A capsules for children every February and August. It also fortifies staple foods such as flour and dried noodles with vitamin A and other micro-nutrients.

The problems of poverty, malnutrition and nutrition-related diseases, including xerophthalmia, are seen by many experts as a vicious circle which is difficult to break. Poverty causes malnutrition among children which in turn weakens the people, rendering them unable to fight their way out of poverty.

Simone Koenig from the F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., a pharmaceutical industry which cooperates with HKI in its campaigns, estimated that malnutrition could cost Indonesia up to US$7.17 billion in lost productivity annually at the time the children reach their supposedly-productive years.

A 1977 survey conducted by the health ministry and HKI found about 60,000 children in Indonesia suffered from serious cases of vitamin A deficiency every year. One-third of them faced total blindness.

The government launched a campaign to reduce this to below WHO's standard of 0.5 percent and succeeded. By 1992, 24 out of Indonesia's 27 provinces had an average vitamin A deficiency level of 0.3 percent.

Indonesia is now the only developing country which has overcome the problem of vitamin A deficiency and blindness.

In comparison, Nepal has a figure of 1.3 to 8.2 percent, India four to 7.2 percent and Sudan 2.7 percent. (swe)