Officials reports 13 new malnutrition cases in capital

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

After repeatedly denying that any children here had malnutrition, the city administration eventually admitted on Thursday that 13 malnutrition cases had been found in the capital, including one case of marasmus in a boy in North Jakarta.

City Health Agency head Abdul Chalik Masulili revealed that Rahmatulloh, a two-and-a-half-year old boy in Penjaringan, North Jakarta, had been found to be undernourished due to a diet deficient in calories and proteins.

"Yes, we confirmed that this is the first extreme malnutrition case in the city. We rushed the toddler to Koja Hospital in North Jakarta for treatment," Masulili said at City Hall.

A number of malnutrition cases have been reported in West and East Nusa Tenggara provinces.

Masulili said the administration had failed to spot the case. Rahmatulloh is the 10th of 11 children of parents Junaidi, 65, and Ruwaidah, 32, and is registered as a Jakarta resident.

"Rahmatulloh was supposed to be recorded for the latest polio vaccination program on May 31. Unfortunately, we could not find his name in our data. It seems that our health workers failed to reach him during the program," Masulili said.

The agency has recorded at least 12 other toddlers with malnutrition, but they have not required hospital treatment. They, nevertheless, are in dire need of nutritious food. Some 8,450 others have symptoms of the onset of malnutrition and need urgent help.

There are more than 923,000 children below five years old in the city.

Seventy percent of the country's money circulates in Jakarta, which sees the most development, and cases of malnutrition are a slap in the face for the administration, which has a mammoth budget of Rp 14.01 trillion this year.

Sutiyoso has repeatedly claimed that no cases of extreme malnutrition were to be found in the city thanks to massive budget allocations for poor residents through various programs, such as the subsidized rice program and other food supplement distribution programs.

Some residents, however, have complained that many programs for the poor had missed their target, leaving many poor residents without access to the assistance.

Masulili had instructed all 44 community health centers at the district level across the city to intensify monitoring, especially in slum areas where malnourished infants are usually found.

The Jakarta Statistics Agency (BPS Jakarta) estimates that some 680 community units, or 25 percent of the total 2,657 community units in Jakarta, are slum areas. The agency also reported in 2002 that there were 291,324 poor families in the city.

"We have also called on the centers to reinstate 3,941 integrated community health posts (posyandu) in their respective areas to distribute nutritious food and milk to children on a monthly basis," he added.

The centers have allocated between Rp 40 million to Rp 200 million for the nutritious food program this year, he said.

Malnutrition made the headlines recently when it was first discovered in West Nusa Tenggara province, where 10 children had reportedly died this year. Other cases were later found in other regions.