Acute health problems among children in Vavuniyaa IDP internment camps

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 October 2009, 14:23 GMT]
Twenty-five percent of children in IDP camps in Vavuniya suffer from acute malnutrition while 40 percent of them are anaemic, according to a report on Nutrition Among Post Conflict Displaced Children in Vavuniya. The report further says that 41.9% of the children have diahorreal diseases and 17.2% are low weight babies.

Meanwhile, Phillipe Duamelle, country representative of UNICEF, told media that there is a significant reduction in severe acute malnutrition among children less than 5 years of age presently in the IDP camps.

“Around 200 million US$ have been spent on providing necessary High energy biscuit, BP-100 and Plumpy nuts for severe acute malnutrition. More than 14,000 children under five were given supplementary feeding using UNIMIX for the last three months and it is being continued”, Duamelle said.

“About 350 metric tons of Therapeutic and supplementary feeding products as well as micronutrient and de-worming tablets have been provided for a total value of more than US$ 1,400,000 by UNICEF,” he added.

However, Secretary to the Ministry of Health and Nutrition Dr. Athula Kahandaliyanage said that children under the age of 5 years in the IDP camps who were suffering from malnutrition have declined by nearly fifty percent since the conflict ended in May.

The Medical Research Institute conducted two nutrition surveys in May and September and said that there are nearly 25,000 children under this age category in the IDP camps.