Kpone– Ms. Kafui Odoom, the Kpone-Katamanso Municipal Nutritionist, has appealed for increased support to save children suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in the area.
Organizations and individuals should help the nutrition unit of the Health Directorate to purchase plumpy nuts to save the malnourished children.
Making the call through the Ghana News Agency, she said the situation if allowed to remain as it was could fuel morbidity and mortality among children aged under five years in the municipality.
The nutrition unit urgently required the free supply of locally made plumpy nuts and other specialized food to manage the severely malnourished and underweight children.
According to Ms. Odoom said they had run out of supply of the plumpy nuts and micronutrient powders, used in managing SAM cases, and that was a cause for concern.
She spoke of how they had at times been using their own resources to buy the nuts from the Tema General Hospital for the severely malnourished children and said that was not a sustainable way of dealing the health problem.
She did not give figures but said the number of severe cases was on the high and it had kept increasing.
The unit would need at least 3,000 pieces of plumpy nuts and 50 boxes of micronutrient powders popularly known as ‘kokoplus’ to take care of the affected children.
Plumpy nut is a peanut-based ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) that contains sugar, vegetable fat and skimmed milk powder which is enriched with vitamins and minerals.
Source: Ghana News Agency
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