The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Around 900 children die of malnutrition in Bangladesh everyday mainly due to a poor dietary intake in the earliest months of their life, said an expert at a dissemination seminar here yesterday.

Eminent child specialist Professor Dr M. Qudrat-e-Khuda Talukder also said that the consequences of insufficient nourishment continue into adulthood and are passed on to the next generations giving rise to a wide array of effects including Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR).

Prof. Dr MQK Talukder made the disclosure at the seminar on "The Lancet's Series on Maternal and Child Undernutrition" organised by the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR'B) at its Sasakawa auditorium.

Dr. Talukder called for revitalizing the nutrition programme in Bangladesh through mobilizing required resources and making the best use of expertise in the health sector to reduce the child mortality and improving the child health in the country.

Director General of the Department of Health Professor Dr Md. Abul Faiz was the chief guest while Editor of Prothom Alo Matiur Rahman and Executive Director of National Nutrition Programme Biman Kumar Saha were the special guests on the occasion.

The seminar was attended by health scientists, physicians, NGO officials and donor representatives, who also took part in the open discussion on health issues.

Dr Abul Faiz referred to the government's relevant health programmes in reducing maternal and child mortality and said efforts should be further geared up to improve the mother and child health in the greater national interest.

Matiur Rahman called for increased media coverage to the health issues taking into active consideration their importance in the country's socio-economic perspective.

Professor Robert E Black of the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Dr Tahmeed Ahmed of ICDDR'B presented two keynote papers with emphasis on long-term educational and economic effects side by side with establishing evidence-based institutions to drastically reduce the consequences of malnutrition.

According to The Lancet, a world famous medical science magazine, more than 3.5 million mothers and uner-5 children die unnecessarily each year globally due to the underlying cause of undernutrition.

Besides, it said, millions more are permanently disabled by the physical and mental effects because of poor diet, putting them into the state of irreversible physical and cognitive damage.

Dr Robert E. Black said 90 per cent of all malnourished children live in 36 developing countries including Bangladesh. "Over a third of the child's deaths and 11 percent of the global disease burdens are resulted from maternal and child malnutrition," he said.

Dr Tahmid Ahmed said maternal and child nutrition interventions could prevent a quarter of child deaths in poor communities. "Bangladesh ranks the 4th position in the list of children suffering from malnutrition," he said.

According to the keynote presenters, at least 13 million children are born annually with IUGR, 112 millions are underweight and 178 million under-5 children suffer from stunning.

"The high mortality and disease burden resulting from these nutrition-related factors make a compelling case for the urgent implementation of interventions to reduce or ameliorate their consequences," they said.