By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The District Medical and Health Officer of East Khasi Hills on Friday launched a one day youth festival 2013 cum Weekly Iron Folic Supplementation Programme (WIFS) at U Soso Tham Auditorium as part of the ambitious scheme of the Union government to address nutritional anaemia, particularly amongst adolescents.
Considering that over 46.5 percent and 39.4 percent of girls and boys between 15-19 years suffer from nutritional anaemia in the State, East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner Sanjay Goyal said that the WIFS will address the high prevalence of anaemia among the adolescents.
Goyal also informed that this programme is targeted at school children from class 6-12 admitted in government aided schools, whereby each student will be provided with the remedial blue tablet every Monday. “There is a need for a lot of mobilization to be done, training for the teachers and proper monitoring in the schools,” Goyal said.
Stating that India has a high prevalence of adolescents suffering from nutritional anaemia, the DC said that in 2011, out of approx 5.7 crore girls between the 15-19 years in the country, 3.2 crore suffers from this disease and out of 6.5 crore boys, 2 crore are detected to be suffering from nutritional anaemia.
Goyal also observed that nutritional anaemia adds to the increasing vulnerability of young boys and girls to drop out of schools, thereby stressing on the need to remedy this pressing problem.
Informing that the district administration already has in place a committee to check the functioning of this programme, Goyal said that this committee which met recently will look into the possibilities of enabling a strong convergence between all the stakeholders, in order to experience an effective implementation of this scheme and to have an ‘Anaemic Free Meghalaya’.
Delivering the inaugural address, Health and Family Welfare Minister AL Hek lamented on the food choices and sedentary lifestyle followed at present by this particular age group at large, making them vulnerable to anaemia.
Hek also stressed on the need to have a strong coordination between the health, education and social welfare departments to ensure that this scheme is implemented in letter and spirit. Meanwhile, Health Secretary M Synrem stated that this scheme will to a large extent help in addressing the problem of high maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate in the State.