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DADU, Feb 26: Poverty, illiteracy and lack of awareness are stark realities and need resolution on urgent basis to bail out, especially rural population from afflictions, among which some are fatal and have roots from infancy.
Medical practitioners and the WHO officials have warned of malnutrition among pregnant women and children - under the age of five - assuming alarming proportions. The situation has now turned into emergency.
The number of children visiting Civil Hospital is enough to corroborate the claim that majority of children in Dadu were suffering from medical ailments arising out of malnutrition.
Two-year-old Ali Asghar of village Ahmed Khan Tago was admitted to the hospital on Friday in a serious condition as he was running high fever and had cough and congestion. Toddler's grandmother, Iqbal Khatoo, said that the boy's father was a peasant and had nine children and unable to provide proper diet to his children and bear expense of medical treatment.
Flood worked as the fuel to family's poverty by inundating whatever farmland they had thus destroying their crop.
Shahzaib, another five-year-old boy, resident of Sita was brought to the hospital on Friday with cardiac problem. The boy was reported to be suffering from this ailment since last two years and had become too weak because of constant weight loss. Ghulam Rasool, father of the boy being jobless was unable to provide even milk to his son.
Hospital's paediatrician, Dr Mohammad Ismail Lashari said that both the boys were suffering from malnutrition, besides other problems. Ali Asghar, as per his age, should have been 10kg in weight as against the present 6kg, he said adding that Shahzaib's should have been 14kg as against 7kg. Both the boys were undernourished thus vulnerable to all sorts of medical ailments, including cardiac problem, he said.
It had been roughly estimated from the visits of patients that some 40 per cent of children in the district were suffering from malnutrition, said Dr Lashari.
Dr abdul Razzaq Abro at hospital's Nutrition Stabilisation Centre said that three mobile teams had been deputed to identify undernourished children and women and shift serious patients to the hospital for treatment and nutritional balancing and those too weak were being provided diet in their homes.
He expressed alarm over the number of children facing malnutrition in the district and furthermore over admission of 30 such children in the hospital.
WHO representative, Dr Sohail Channar said that malnutrition among children and pregnant women of Dadu had turned into an emergency-like situation and the numbers were too high to be ignored.
The WHO standard declares the situation dangerous if the number of malnutrition children and pregnant women crosses 15 per cent of the population, he said adding that the statistics were not being covered as it should have been.
A number of mobile and fixed teams of doctors were working to eradicate the menace of malnutrition from the district, said Dr Channar and hoped of achieving the target even though the work began late.
He said that around 23 per cent people in northern and 21 per cent in southern Sindh were undernourished and vowed to clip the menace before it takes a heavy toll.
Dr Salma working on malnutrition problems in taluka Mehar said that the target was to cover 17,000 malnutrition pregnant women in four union councils and all were being provided the required diet.
