[pronut-hiv] Zambia: The Case of Vitamin A Fortification of Sugar - Part 1

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Zambia: The Case of Vitamin A Fortification of Sugar - Part 1

 The Times of Zambia (Ndola)

ANALYSIS
June 7, 2006
Davis Mataka

For a while now, there has been debate in Zambia on whether there is
justification for the entire populous to continue to be subjected to a
Vitamin A supplement through the fortification of sugar or not.

Lately, there has also been talk doing the rounds that there are plans
by authorities to go a step further and start fortifying the staple food
mealie meal.

It is argued that this piece of legislation which for all intents and
purposes was made in good faith has been slowly hijacked by some witty
businessmen to use the law to their advantage by blocking any potential
rivals threatening to eat up part of their market share.

Others have argued that it is part of a worldwide conspiracy to
systematically wipe out some races of people from the face of the earth
in the most unsuspecting way by lacing such products with slow acting
poisonous agents which target only black Africans.

This can be attested to as a former Apartheid South Africa prime
minister who once publicly stated and encouraged his Boer kin not to be
ashamed of their policy of segregation of the black man as it was indeed
a racially backward race.

And that his scientists had gone a long way to invent more innovative
ways to exterminate this Kaffir race through scientific laboratory
mastery, (HIV/AIDS!!).

A moral question therefore arises whether it is justifiable for one
section of the nation to push for the arbitrary transformation into law
about the intake of these supplements in the absence of a rigorous
national consensus both scientifically proven for the need for such
nutrients and or morally if anyone has the right to force people to take
nutrients they do not need.

It is generally acceptable that some regions in the nation have a
lacking in certain nutrients bringing to the core the need for any
responsible government to ensure that its nationals are provided with
the necessary and correct food value to nurture them into healthy
citizens.

HISTORY

According to documents compiled in 1995, Zambia's population was
estimated at 9.6 million with an annual growth rate of 3.2 per cent.
About 20 per cent and 49 per cent of the population was also estimated
to be under five years and under 15 years respectively, roughly, 58 per
cent of that population was believed to have been living in urban
areas.

The Copperbelt and Lusaka provinces accounted for over 75 per cent of
the total urban population. 68 per cent of Zambians at the time were
estimated to be poor: 29 per cent in urban areas and 76 per cent of
those living in rural areas.

It was stated that Zambia had been suffering a decline in the
nutritional status of its nationals since the fall of copper prices in
1974 and 1975 and for a host of many other reasons.

The daily per capita consumption reduced from 2300 Kcl in 1980 to
2000Kcl in 1986-88.

A priority survey carried out in 1993 revealed that 41 per cent of the
children under the age of five years were stunted (a figure that
according to the Food and Health Nutrition Information system (FHANIS)
had increased to 53 per cent by 1995.

Other social indicators for the poor in Zambia at the time were that
life expectancy at 47 years, infant mortality estimated at 113 per 1000
live births. The under five years mortality rate was estimated at 202
per 1000 live births and maternal mortality estimated at 150 per 1000
live births.

It was also suggested in the same report that micro-nutrient
malnutrition was also very high in Zambia. Iron deficiency Anaemia was
said to cause a lot of problems in women of reproductive age. Clinical
signs of iodine deficiency disorders had been detected especially in the
Central and Southern provinces.

Pockets of Vitamin A deficiency were also reported. Studies carried out
in 1985 in the Luapula valley revealed that 1.89 per cent of children
under the age of five had clinical signs of Vitamin A deficiency (VAD),
such as night blindness, Exophthalmia and blindness and 75 per cent of
children between the ages of six months to six years had low serum
retinol levels.

If more than 20 per cent of individuals presented such low serum
retinol levels, then it was indicative of a serious public health
problem.

In 1984, the Zambia Council for the Physically Handicapped registered
12,720 blind persons in the country of which 57 per cent were from
Luapula Province.

In the early 1990s, a second community based study of children less
than two years of age as conducted in Samfya district in Luapula
Province. Low levels of serum retinol were said to be found in 50 per
cent of the children from which only an estimated 10 per cent received
Vitamin A supplements prior to the study.