‘Residents urged to attend malnutrition counsellin...

‘Residents urged to attend malnutrition counselling programmes’

Zim Now Writer

Harare City acting epidemiologist, Dr Michael Vere has urged residents to attend malnutrition counselling programmes being offered at council polyclinics and in the communities.

This comes after Harare has recorded over 150 percent rise in malnutrition cases with 95 percent of the affected being children below the age of 5 years while the remaining are above 5 years.

Dr Vere said the Health Services Department has been working on malnutrition screening programmes at Council polyclinics.

“We have been performing malnutrition counselling where we teach people how to prepare an adequately balanced meal.

“We are also doing malnutrition rehabilitation in our clinics, this is mainly done to those with severe acute malnutrition where we provide fortified foods or ready to use therapeutic foods that are available in 20 of our clinics,” said Dr Vere.

Residents are also given nutritional guidance which are very important as it enables people to grow crops that allow them to prepare nutritional meals.

According to a report by Unicef, nearly 100 000 children under five are suffering from acute malnutrition and over 1 million young children are not eating well enough to thrive.

In response, Unicef has prioritised the prevention and treatment of malnutrition among children, pregnant and breastfeeding women in 25 priority districts in Zimbabwe.