Averting tragedy
New Delhi tries to tame malnutrition
India actually houses the largest number of malnourished children in the world, larger than in sub-Saharan Africa.” Sashwati Banerjee, managing director of Sesame Workshop India
As another dangerously underweight toddler balances precariously on his set of scales, Dr Om Pr aka sh know she has to move fast to avert tragedy.
“The children who are severely malnourished can die between a few hours to a few days,” said the doctor during a shift at an intensive care unit exclusively for children in India’s poorest state.
“For the health of any person, nutrition is the first requirement. When nutrition is affected, all of the body’s functions are deranged.”
The 30-bed hospital at Darbhanga in the eastern state of Bihar teems with children with protruding bellies and sunken eyes — telltale signs of wasting and stunting, owing to severe malnutrition.
While its economy is growing at a healthy rate, India still lags behind some of its poorer neighbors on child nutrition with more than 40 million stunted children, according to a recently released report.
Despite the government spending billions of rupees on tackling the scourge, it has yet to make a serious dent in a problem perpetuated by poverty, gender inequality, and disease.
“India actually houses the largest number of malnourished children in the world, larger than in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Sashwati Banerjee, managing director of Sesame Workshop India.
Vulnerable to illness
These children, if they survive, will grow up shorter and weaker, with their brains and immune systems compromised, more vulnerable to illness. Between 2006 and 2014, stunting levels in children under five declined from 48 percent to 39 percent, according to the Global Nutrition Report.
But it still far exceeds a global average of 24 percent, found the report, which was overseen by the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Shriveled and scrawny, the children at the Bihar center are weighed in bright blue plastic tubs, normally used to carry water or laundry.
There are no toys or drawings on the walls, only the sound of children wailing while others sit motionless and stare, dazed.
Doctors feed them a special concoction of sugar and milk based on how much they weigh.
“It would be a disaster if normal food was given to them. So we give them food that has lower calories and is easily digestible,” said Prakash.
“Over time we increase the amount, then we switch to semisolid food and gradually to the locally available food.”
Zalumun Khatoon’s fouryear-old grandson Shahadat Hussein weighs eight kilos, just half of the normal weight for his age.
“He was on medication for nine months, then he had a fever all the time and he started to lose weight,” she said, as doctors and nurses busily zipped in and out of the facility.
While overall levels of malnutrition are on the slide, eradication efforts are also being undermined by the rapid rise in India’s population which is expected to surpass China’s by 2022, according to UN projections.