Tanzanian Workshop on Social Mobilization for Nutrition. An international workshop has identified seven “key elements” in the use of social mobilization for promotion of child survival/development and primary health care. The workshop, held in Iringa, Tanzania, on 9-11 March 1987 discussed the role of social mobilization in the Iringa Nutrition Programme, which is funded by the Joint UNICEF/WHO Nutrition Support Programme. “One of the major conclusions of the workshop was that projects and programmes must be seen in the broader frame of a process oriented strategy for development,” WHO reports. Participants concluded that social mobilization “is really a matter of resource mobilization”. The main issues in social mobilization were sustainability, replicability and cost effectiveness. Key elements to be considered in programming for child survival/development and primary health care with a social mobilization approach were: advocacy emphasizing participation, information and communication, training and education, provision of services, mobilizing agents, organization and relations and social, mobilization analysis. [Source: WHO Report, July 1987]
Safe Motherhood. Death and illness resulting from complications of pregnancy and childbirth are distressing symptoms of poverty and disadvantage. When a woman in a developing country becomes pregnant, her chances of dying can be up to 200 times higher than those of a pregnant woman in an affluent society. To heighten awareness and concern about the neglect of women's health, particularly in the developing world, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities jointly sponsored an international conference on Safe Motherhood, held in Nairobi, Kenya, in February 1987. Following the Conference, a fund to promote safe motherhood is being established, with World Bank support, by WHO. [Source: World Health Forum, Volume 8, pp. 155-160, 1987]
Vitamin A in Africa. A national symposium on Vitamin A was held in Addis Ababa on 7-8 December 1987. The symposium, organized by the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Vitamin A Consultancy Group (IVACG), discussed a range of topics related to vitamin A deficiency, including its effects on growth and the management of interventions, as well as vitamin A deficiency in 11 African and 5 other countries. The symposium was followed by the 12th meeting of the IVACG in Addis Ababa, 9-12 December 1987, which had as a major theme the development of country strategies to control and prevent vitamin A deficiency in African countries.
Cassava: Pros and Cons. Agencies interested in fostering the production of cassava for human consumption should assure that member countries are aware of both its advantages and limitations, the SCN's Advisory Group on Nutrition (AGN) has recommended. At its meeting in Washington, DC in February 1987, the AGN said cassava was a cheap source of calories, could be targeted towards the poor and could serve as a cheap and easily-prepared weaning food. However, it contains inadequate protein to sustain life, especially in young children, and contains toxic cyanogenic-goitrogenic substances. The first problem could be dealt with by adding protein-rich foods, such as lentils and peanuts. The second limitation can be overcome by adequate preparation (which, however, might be difficult to ensure); by low consumption, which make cassava of limited utility; or by introduction and use of 'sweeter' (lower toxicity) cassavas - but these may have less yield and less good storage characteristics. The AGN has further recommended that where cassava is being rapidly commercialized (e.g. for animal feed) opportunities for poor households to grow cassava for household food and income security should be protected. [Source: Report of Meeting of the Advisory Group on Nutrition of the ACC/SCN, February 1987. SCN 88/AGN A. p.4]
Radioactive Contamination of Foods. An international expert consultation convened by FAO has recommended “interim action levels” for radioactive contamination of foods entering international trade. The consultation, held in Rome in December 1986, was called following the Chernobyl nuclear power station accident. In the absence of international recommendations on unavoidable levels of radiation in foodstuffs, food trade was severely disrupted in many countries of Europe and Asia. The consultation's interim levels are based on safety recommendations established by WHO and the International Commission on Radiological Protection. Consumption of contaminated foods with radionuclides at or below the interim levels would not create additional health risks to consumers, the experts said. Their proposals were based on the “very conservative” assumption that all foods consumed by an individual would be equally contaminated, FAO reported. The levels chosen were intended to protect the most sensitive consumer groups, such as infants, and took into account such factors as preferential absorption by certain parts of the body. [Source: Report of the Expert Consultation Recommended Limits for Radionuclide Contamination of Foods, FAO December 1986]
OCEANIAFOODS Established. Twenty-five South Pacific countries have set up OCEANIAFOODS as a regional committee of the International Network of Food Data Systems (INFOODS). The decisions was made at a conference in Canberra in May 1987 sponsored by the Australian Department of Community Services and Health and attended by delegates from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific Commission, representing 21 Pacific Island States. They agreed that Australia would provide the OCEANIAFOODS secretariat for the first two years, after which it would rotate on a two-yearly basis among Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific Commission in Noumea. INFOODS, a UNU-sponsored project, was set up in 1984 and is based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.
Food and Nutrition Course in Benin. Thirty-one development personnel from six African countries and Italy attended an International Food and Nutrition Course in Porto Novo, Benin, in April/May 1987. The course, part of a four-year programme sponsored by Italy's Direction General for Development Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, included seven one-week modules covering: the integration of peripheral structures into a national food and nutrition surveillance system; surveys of food consumption and living conditions; surveys of nutritional status; food composition and nutritional value of foods; food hygiene and laboratory analysis of contamination; food and nutrition education; and computer analysis of survey data. Participants were drawn from Ministries of Agriculture, Health, Education and Public Information. On the suggestion of participants, Italian authorities are examining the possibility of repeating the course each year in a different country of francophone Africa. One objective of the four-year nutrition programme is to train national and provincial level cadres from West and Central Africa in food and nutrition. [Source: Istituto Nazionale della Nutrizione, August 1987]
Germinated Cereals for Weaning Foods: SIDA Project. Field trials using germinated flour as a weaning food in Zambia is starting under a one-year project funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). The project is one of several focussed on weaning foods, particularly germinated cereals, to be launched with SIDA assistance. To deepen knowledge on the subject, SIDA sponsored with UNICEF and IDRC a workshop in Nairobi in October 1987. At present, SIDA's Health Bureau is cooperating with UNICEF in assistance to the Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre, the Zambia National Nutritional Surveillance Programme and Zimbabwe's Supplementary Food Production Programme. The agency is now planning a project with the International College of Midwives on breastfeeding.
Polished White Rice. “Malnutrition in Vietnam has become serious and widespread, and beri-beri, a diet-related nervous disorder, is occurring in the army in epidemic proportions, according to the head of a military medical institute in Hanoi”, the New York Times reported in May, 1987. The report said international health and welfare organizations had been concerned for several years about mounting evidence of malnutrition in Vietnam. It said beri-beri was common in Asian countries in which people subsist on a diet of polished white rice. [Source: New York Times, May 14, 1987]
Breastfed Infants. Data from a Malaysian Family Life Survey had shown an increase in the percentage of infants breastfed, at least initially, from 75 percent in 1970-74 to 79 percent in 1975-77, the American Journal of Public Health reported. Contrary to trends in some developed countries, the increase had occurred among poor and uneducated women as well as among the more fortunate.
