Bhubaneswar: The ongoing migrant crisis, amplified by the lockdown curbs, may take a heavy toll on the nutritional status of thousands of kids in the state dependent on institutional assistance for the same, say experts.
Volunteers, NGOs and international agencies now fear about the impact of the health disaster on the nutritional status of the kids. Many opine that due to loss of wages of their family heads, reverse migration and lack of access to institutional care may hit many people and their families harder.
“In many ways nutritional intake of kids are likely to get a jolt especially when we talk about lockdown. Many kids are not out of the seasonal hostels which are closed now. They were sent to their close relatives. Many still do not have access to institutional care system like anganwadi centres,” said Ghasiram Panda, Programme Manager, ActionAid, Bhubaneswar.
He also said that due to reverse migration children of many of such families continued to struggle for food for the day. Some of the studies done in the past also hint that natural disasters and nutritional standards of kids are directly linked.
Keeping in mind the higher incidences of stunting, anaemia and other nutritional shortcomings in rural and tribal pockets of the state, the Covid 19 crisis can be another challenging time to achieve its target and improve the overall health indicators from the state. “It is important to ensure that Covid-19 does not lead to a nutritional crisis and Odisha does not lose the progress it has made over the past several years. Unicef in Odisha is working closely with the state government to ensure a nutrition response remains at the core of the Covid-19 strategy in the state,” said Monika Nielsen, Chief, Field Office, Unicef Odisha.
When the state government decided to close down the anganwadi centres, alternative channels of providing nutrition were put in place to ensure that the lockdown did not impact the nutrition of children. The government opted for home delivery of ration and took some other steps. Odisha has made improvements in nutrition levels over the past decade and a half. Between National Family Health Survey 3 (NFHS 3) in 2005-06 and NFHS 4 in 2015-16, the proportion of malnourished children under the age of five (U-5) in the state declined to 34.4 per cent from 40.7 per cent.
But wasting (low weight for height) among children continues to be quite high. Approximately 20 per cent of under-five kids in Odisha are wasted which is an indication of several nutritional deficiency and/or disease and put such children at a high risk of sub-optimal growth, and in severe cases death. These numbers call for immediate and sustained action.
Manish Kumar, OP