Millions of pregnant women suffer from malnutrition

BOGOR, West Java (JP): Millions of pregnant women and babies in Indonesia are suffering from malnutrition, a scientist said here Saturday.

Hidayat Syarief, in an speech marking his inauguration as a professor at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture said as many as 51 percent of expecting mothers in Indonesia were poorly nourished.

"This is a problem that needs serious handling so that negative impacts on babies can be prevented," he said.

Quoting the 1997 United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) report, Hidayat said 14 percent of infants were born with low- birth-weight, while Indonesia's infant mortality rate is 55 per 1,000 births.

He estimated 6.7 million children under five years old suffered from protein deficiency, while 7 million were malnourished.

"The high prevalence of malnutrition among pregnant women and under-five-year-old children cannot be separated from families' poor ability to buy nutritious food in addition to poor hygiene that causes children to be easily infected by diseases," he said.

Hidayat called on the government to make an effort to guarantee that every family could afford to buy nutritious food.

Still quoting Unicef, Hidayat said more Indonesian children were malnourished and in poorer health than in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

Fourteen percent of Indonesia babies were born underweight compared to 8 percent in Malaysia.

Indonesia needed to make a "strategic effort" to improve the nutritional, health and educational condition of its children, he said.

He cited several projects the government had undertaken to improve children's health and nutrition, including by the supplementary food program in elementary schools and launching the antipolio immunization program for all children under the age of five years.

Last Tuesday, the government launched the final round of the drive aimed at immunizing nearly 22 million children.

The current three-day campaign is the first of two phases of the third and final round of the national drive; the first and second round were in 1995 and 1996 respectively.

The second phase will start Oct. 7.

Two hundred and eighty-six thousand immunization posts have been set up in public places like health centers, bus stations, and kindergartens. (24/05)