Bhubaneswar: A total of 452 children in Odisha are suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM), Women and Child Development Child Minister Tukuni Sahu informed the Assembly, Saturday.
She gave a written reply to a question asked by Congress legislator Santosh Singh Saluja and said that Nabarangpur district with 57 SAM children has the largest number of kids suffering from the disease. Sahu also informed that Dhenkanal district has not reported a single SAM case.
Similarly, 26 severe acute malnutrition children are there in the Jajpur district. Notably, 20 children from Juang tribe had died of malnutrition within a short span of time in 2016 in Nagada area of the district.
As per the minister’s statement, Konjhar district has 45 SAM children. Other districts which have reported SAM cases are Sundergarh and Mayurbhaj districts (29 each), Koraput (28), Balasore (24), Kalahandi, Malkangiri and Kandhamal (21 each), Rayagada (18), Bhadrak and Nuapada (17 each), Sambalpur (16), Cuttack (14), Bolangir (10),Bargarh (9), Angul and Kendrapara (seven each), Ganjam, Jagatsinghpur, Khurda Nayagarh (five each), Jharsuguda, Gajapati and Puri (four each), Deogarh (two) and Boudh and Sonepur (one each).
Sahu said the Odisha government is implementing various steps for SAM children. Among them are early identification of such children and shifting them to NRC for their nutrition and health care.
The anganwadi workers are also regularly visiting children suffering from this disease to monitor their health conditions. Supplementary nutrition food is being served to the children under Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), she said.
The families of SAM children have been earmarked as highly sensitive and included under various social welfare schemes of different departments, added the minister.
PNN
