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

["WARD SIAMUSANTU" <wsiamusantu@yahoo.com>]

Dear Davis,

Thank you very for your contribution towards a very
important issue related to public health and
trade/economic. We (the Public Heath / nutrition
sector) appreciate your observations and we would like
to indicate to you that we are very open for any
support you would wish to have to broaden public
understanding on some of the public health
(Nutritional) interventions the Government of Zambia
is putting in place to improve the health welfare of
the Zambian population.

I would further appeal to you to come to the national
Food and Nutrition Commission (Lusaka / Zambia) for
some information on the issue you debated and any
other issue related to nutrition interventions in
Zambia. The contact details ? 260-1-227803 /
260-1-221426.

Ward


--- ProNut-HIV <pronut-hiv@healthnet.org> wrote:

> 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.
> 
>