By Kemo Cham
[First published on www.politicosl.com] Sierra Leone risks losing much
needed funding for its malnutrition programme because of corruption and illegal
sale of therapeutic foods meant for malnourished children, a health official
warned on Wednesday.
Unscrupulous business people connive
with corrupt health officials to divert plumpy nut paste supplied to children
enrolled under the country`s therapeutic feeding programme and sold in open
market, said Ms Aminata Shamit Koroma, Director of Nutrition at the Ministry of
Health and Sanitation (MoHS). She said the high prevalence of the illegal act
has left donors unsettled and threatening to withhold funding if the situation
was not addressed.
The health ministry is therefore
threatening prosecution of anyone found to be involved in the act.
Plumpy nuts are made from peanuts
and specifically formulated to feed severely acute malnourished children.
Sierra Leone has one of the highest
rates of malnutrition, at 39 percent, according to statistics. The phenomenon
is said to be the leading cause of
child mortality in the country.
Last year alone US1.2M was spent on
procuring the plumpy nuts, according to Ms Koroma. She said people use them to
make all sorts of food eaten by grownups, including ground nut stew.
Business people, mostly street
traders who sell them say they are not to blame. They say they get it from
legitimate sources. But Ms Koroma said both the suppliers and traders will be
liable to prosecution if caught with the product that`s not meant to be sold in
the first place.
“The donors have said that if we do
not stop it they will stop the funding and we do not want our children to die
of malnutrition,” she said at the opening ceremony of a two-day planning
conference of organised by Focus 1000.
Focus 1000 is a civil society
orgnisation that propagates for the provision of essential healthcare services
with a major focus on the first 1000 days of the life of a child.
Focus 1000 works with a multitude of
partners across the country in implementing its projects.
The two-day conference underway at
the St. Edwards Primary School Hall at Kingtom in the west end of Freetown
provides a platform for the partners to plan ahead of 2016. The discussions are
focusing on nutrition and vaccination, two major aspects of the organization`s
intervention.
Sierra Leone has been doing well in
terms of fighting malnutrition but still there are many children who are
malnourished, said MoHS Nutrition Director, while appealing for a change of
attitude towards nutrition in general.
“Our ancestors used to live long.
But today when you listen to obituary announcements, it`s heart rending. People
are dying at very young age,” she said.
John Kamara, a representative from
the Catholic Relief Service, a major funding partner of Focus 1000, said that
just recently 113 cartons of the therapeutic food was discovered to have gone
missing.
“This pose a threat to our children
and it is everybody`s business to ensure the practice is stopped,” he said.
The MoHS say malnutrition accounts
for about 46 percent of deaths among children.
Officials say the problem starts
from conception, where pregnant women hardly have enough or quality food to
eat. When the child is born the problem continues.
And for many babies, it gets even
more complicated with the reluctance of many lactating mothers to stick to the
golden run of at least six months exclusive breastfeeding.
(C) Politico Online 16/12/15
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