ASIA/INDONESIA - Even if food is not lacking, children in the east are still dying from malnutrition

Kupang (Agenzia Fides) - A lack of trained health staff, treatments and health promotion make
Indonesia's eastern province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) one of the country's most food insecure, despite the general availability of food. In the drought-prone mostly rural province of 4.5 million people spread out over 50 islands, the average per capita income is US$265 a year.
According to the FAO office in Kupang, food is not the main problem. It exists in abundance. Instead, a food security index needs to be established that takes into account women's education, access to clean water, health, electricity, passable roads and access to health services, protection from natural disasters, deforestation and food production. The province of NTT registers by far the highest rate of malnutrition among children under five years, considered chronically malnourished (46.7%) or severely malnourished (20%), in comparison to the national average of 36.8% and 13.6% respectively. Some 1,300 children were recorded as severely acutely malnourished in 2009 in NTT, which was two percent of all children surveyed. The province only had therapeutic foods available to treat 10 percent
Another problem is insufficient health promotion and lack of trained nutritionists willing to work in remote areas. Currently there are seven trained nutritionists spread over NTT's 286 community
health posts. The government has recently launched a program in 11 districts in the province that provides for the distribution for 90 days of 100 grams of nutritional biscuits per day to target energy-deficient children. Another program of WHO distributes micronutrients. In the province of NTT, there are two medical centres that provide nutritious food to treat the most vulnerable children and prevent acute malnutrition. However, these interventions have a limited impact, since not all families bring their children to the centres given they do not consider malnutrition a problem. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 20/12/2010)