Action
The objectives of the UNICEF Nutrition programme are to contribute to the reduction of children’s morbidity and mortality by institutionalising the management of acute malnutrition, developing child survival interventions (including vitamin A supplementation), improving nutritional surveillance and increasing iodised salt production and consumption. To respond to this crisis, UNICEF together with NGOs and partner agencies has opened 44 therapeutic feeding centers (TFC) in 2003 where more than 20,000 children under five have been admitted and treated for severe malnutrition. Over sixty thousand moderately malnourished children, pregnant and lactating women were assisted with targeted supplementary feeding. Some 900 health workers were trained on the management of acute malnutrition. Since the beginning of the year the nutrition situation globally improves, however, the population remains highly vulnerable and too many children are still suffering from acute malnutrition. UNICEF continues to support 16 therapeutic feeding centres (TFC) through NGOs and 23 therapeutic feeding units (TFU) integrated in health facilities. UNICEF promotes capacity building in treatment of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) through the medical universities. From the beginning of 2004, UNICEF has funded the training of 201 health professionals including trainers in Medical Universities of Ethiopia. The objective is for the Universities to include the management of SAM into the student’s curricula. UNICEF supported the universitary hospitals for the establishment of TFU that serves for practical sessions. UNICEF plans to assist the MoH in the future training of more regional health workers with the goal of integrating the protocol into routine health care treatment and establishing additional TFUs. Health facilities will be equipped to deal with malnutrition patients, including screening for and recording statistics on malnutrition. Future training sessions will ensure the continued build up of more trainers of trainers (TOT) as well as rapid response teams to deal with times of crisis. As a recovery programme, UNICEF has launched the “Enhanced Outreach Strategy for Child Survival Intervention (EOS)”. This is a three years project bridging towards the government’s initiative called the Health Extension Package (HEP). The target population is 6,779,867 children from 6 to 59 months of age living the 325 most food insecure woredas in the country. The overall objective is to enhance child survival by reducing mortality and morbidity in children under 5 years of age. The specific objectives are at least 90% of children 6-59 months given vitamin A every 6 months in the targeted woredas ; Ensure access twice a year by children 6-59 months to the following key child survival interventions in the targeted woredas: de-worming ; screening for acute malnutrition and referral to the nearest feeding centre when appropriate ; social mobilisation for routine immunisation and immunisation against measles for children under one year old ; information, education and communication (IEC) on infant and young child feeding; promotion of hand washing and HIV/AIDS prevention. In April 2004, the EOS project was piloted in 14 woredas of SNNPR, followed by the remaining 40 targeted woredas in June 2004. The project will be expanded to the other regions in the second semester of the year. IDD is a public health problem in Ethiopia. In 2003 progress was made toward increasing population access to iodized salt by the training of 18 salt producing companies and quality control laboratory technicians located in 4 regions on salt iodization. In 2004, Ethiopia is expected to scale up production of iodized salt. Agreements were signed between the Federal Ministry of Health and the Ethiopian salt producing companies and machines were distributed. More work needs to be done on technical issues like quality control and packaging before being able to get most of the Ethiopian salt production iodised.
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