Project provides vitamins, de-worming for southern children
Belize has changed significantly over the years and in most ways for the better. But while opportunities and incomes have grown, that growth has been uneven, with some parts of the country faring better than others. One thing that hasn’t changed is that the further south you travel the greater the poverty. News Five’s Janelle Chanona reports on one initiative that seeks to address some basic issues in southern villages.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Over the last four days, more than thirty-five hundred children from the Stann Creek and Toledo districts have been hand fed de-worming medication and vitamin A.
According to health officials, the initiative is being implemented in response to a 2006 study conducted in the South which produced alarming results.
Jorge Polanco, Acting Director of Health Services
“There was a village that had a rate of sixty-two percent of their children were infested with intestinal parasites. The issue then is what does this mean? This simply reflects a poor environmental sanitation and this is what called our attention. We see that it’s not just a matter of giving tablets to de-worm children, it’s not just a matter of taking care of the parasites but the priority would be to address the roots of this problem.”
And in this case, poverty is the primary culprit. Their economic status make children the primary targets for parasites and diseases like malaria and dengue.
Jorge Polanco
“It will not only affect their cognitive capacity, but it also affects their physical growth because parasitism on the long run contributes directly to anaemia and nutritional anaemia. You can see the children that there’s a degree of stunting, sometimes you can see physically that there is some degree of a low level of haemoglobin, which is the anaemia.”
To immediately address the problem, on Friday the Ministry of Health, PAHO and Vitamin Angels, teamed up to launch a five year project which will ensure that the twenty-five thousand primary schoolers in Stann Creek and Toledo receive worm medicine and vitamin supplements twice a year.
Howard Schiffer, President, Vitamin Angels
“There are so many problems that the world is facing today that we don’t know the solution for that require billons of dollars or decades to find the cure for, this isn’t one of them. This is something that we know the solution for today and this is a low tech, low cost solution to a major global health problem. So with a very, very little investment, we can see huge returns and any time I feel that you could make that kind of impact in a child, in a community, in a country’s future, it’s totally worth it.”
But the partners agree that eradicating poverty takes teamwork.
Beverley Barnett, PAHO/WHO Country Rep.
“Some of the results are immediate of course. If you treat anaemia and if you get a child to increase weight and grow more, you can see those in the short term but to keep that sustained and to make sure that when the project finishes, things don’t just go back to how they were, that is the challenge, that’s the sustainability, that is where the system’s approach and the partnership have to be sustained. So it’s very important to make sure that whatever strategies are used are appropriate for the community, for the district, for the region, for the country.”
With that reality in mind, in conjunction with the project, health workers will also embark on an aggressive education campaign to help residents develop good hygiene, proper nutritional habits and to keep their environment clean. Health officials say the program operates in tandem with the Ministry’s national prevention strategy.
Margaret Ventura, C.E.O., Ministry of Health
“In front of every school, there is a person selling chips, gums, candy, cotton candy and a number of items that are not good for our young children so it’s going to be a long hard road but I am very, very pleased that the media is here with us today to help to promote that new culture of prevention.”
And according to the Vitamin Angels, there are plans to piggy back on other initiatives already in place.
Howard Schiffer
“Even though we’re just starting this campaign, we are already talking about a newborn baby initiative possibly in the next year, we are already talking about a maternal health and prenatal program for the entire country so there’s always enough work to keep us busy.”
The Ministry of Health plans to implement the de-worming and vitamin program nationally in 2008.
Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.
Vitamin Angels has launched similar initiatives in seventeen other countries, distributing vitamins and other medicines to more than five and a half million children.
