Worry over rising malnutrition cases in Teso

Health experts have expressed concern over the high burden of malnutrition in Teso Sub-region due to food insecurity and ignorance among many households.

Mr Daniel Kamara, a clinical and community nutritionist at Bwindi Community Hospital, said most places in Teso are food insecure and the children do not meet the required balanced diet.

According to Mr Kamara, most of the communities in Teso consume a lot of carbohydrates like cassava, explaining why most children are stunted.

Mr Kamara encouraged mothers to prioritise a balanced diet for their children and also choose brighter colours of plates that can raise the children's appetite so that they can eat their food.

“A child gets tired of eating the same food every day so utensils also may play a critical role in their lives. “Proteins are also very important in children because they help them grow well,” he added.

Mr Kamara said parents sometimes carry their children to the gardens and they are only fed on potatoes and water saying a mother has no time to prepare for the children proper meals.

“Mothers are also getting drunker than men and forgetting their roles in their children's lives,” Mr Kamara said.

Sr Rachael Adong, a midwife in the nutritional department at Soroti Regional Referral Hospital, said the Teso Sub-region has a 48 percent prevalence rate, which implies that children under 5 years are suffering from severe malnutrition.

She noted that Soroti City, the districts of Kapelebyong, Amuria and Kalaki have the highest number of children who are severely malnourished. 

“Most of these cases are neglected in the communities, which sometimes leads children to have peeling skins, swollen bodies, and others,” she said.

Ms Adong mentioned that midwives have a key role to play in providing perception care, especially on the abnormalities of the brain and spinal code saying the failure of midwives to educate the community poses high cases of malnutrition.

She further explained that some mothers in the community believe malnutrition is not dangerous saying they only seek medical attention when their children are severely sick.

Ms Adong said Soroti hospital is currently caring for 238 children who are malnourished and have so far lost more than 10 since July. 

Ms Adong blamed parents who don't have time for children because they rush for work, leaving children in the care of maids. She noted that in the rural areas where women are mostly the breadwinners, they spend more time in the gardens than with their children.

“Even when these parents return from work they don't care to know whether their children have eaten,” she added.

Ms Ketty Atai, a mother of three living in the community of Nyero in Kumi District, said her son was diagnosed with moderate acute malnutrition, which left him stunted.

“I don’t know whether my delay in antenatal care led to this condition my child is going through because he cannot sit or walk and yet he is two years now,” Ms Atai said.

Ms Jemima Akello, a resident of Acowa in Kapelebyong, said feeding her 12-month-old baby has been a challenge due to financial constraints.

Akello, 16, who was abandoned by the father of the baby, said she mostly feeds on cassava and sometimes has no food for the infant. 

“My baby would barely finish a month without falling sick. Little did I know that my baby was malnourished,” Mr Akello said. 

According to a Unicef report, almost one-third of children under five years in Uganda are stunted and that among the health effects of malnutrition include anaemia and repeated childhood infections like diarrhoea.

ABOUT NUTRITION

According to a UNICEF report, it is estimated that more than 500,000 young Ugandan children died between 2013 and 2015. Of these deaths, nearly half were associated with undernutrition. Undernutrition is responsible for four in 10 deaths of children under five. It is estimated that undernutrition costs Uganda Shs1.8 trillion, equivalent to 56 percent of the country’s gross domestic product annually.