The New Nation - Internet Edition

ACCORDING to a report published in a national vernacular daily, 16 per cent of the population in Bangladesh are still using salt without the necessary iodine fortification. More worrisome is the information that 51 per cent of the salt producers are not ensuring the mixing of adequate quantity of iodine in their produce. Thus, it can be said that more than 50 per cent of the population remain vulnerable to iodine deficiency in their diets in varying degrees with all the attendant health problems to be caused by this phenomenon. Iodine deficiency in food in Bangladesh had made the government with support from international agencies to launch a vigorous campaign to motivate salt processors to mix iodine with their produce in appropriate doses since the seventies. Iodised salt thus started to be packed and sold at higher prices.

Iodine ought to be present in salt for getting the optimum nutritional benefit from salt. Salt without iodine is also well utilised by the human body for metabolism purposes. But salt fortified with iodine is necessary to meet an important nutritional need. Lack of iodine in the salt leads to serious health problems such as mental impairment specially for children, thyroid gland problems, child mortality, abortion, among others. All of such serious health problems can be avoided if salt is taken in the daily diet fortified with iodine. But it is sad that although the knowledge of the consequences of iodine deficiency has been with us for a long time, the consumption of salt without iodine in it continues in the country.

Clearly, the ensuring of iodine fortification of salt should now be looked upon as a law enforcement problem. The health ministry should take the initiative to warn the negligent producers of salt to make sure the iodine deficiency is not there in their products with immediate effect. They should be subjected to prompt legal penalties for failing to heed the warning. The authorities concerned should also regularly test salt sold in the market to ascertain whether it is iodised or not as is required for helping people not suffer the nutritional deficiency. Diseases arising from iodine deficiency are easily preventable. But the diseases can endanger public health on a large scale causing substantial costs in the form of treatment at individual and family levels. But these health hazards can be so easily precluded from happening only by ensuring that iodine in right proportions is present in salt. Those companies charging extra prices on the plea of making salt iodised but actually sell non-iodised salt should be given exemplary punishment in the interest of public health safety. Regular monitoring of the quality of salt sold in the market thus appears to be urgent to ensure this.