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Background: Weekly Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation (WIFS) Programme is an initiative to decrease the burden of anaemia among adolescents studying in Government schools. Objective: To assess the difference in prevalence of anaemia among Government school-going adolescents girls on WIFS as compared to private school girls not on WIFS. Methods: Cross-sectional study was conducted among adolescent girls, 7th to 10th standard in Government schools (on WIFS) and private schools (not on WIFS). The sample size in each group was 104, selected by multi-stage sampling. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaire, clinical examination and haemoglobin estimation. Chi-square test and Unpaired t test used to compare the categorical and continuous variables respectively. Results: The prevalence of anaemia among the school children in government schools was 51% and in the private schools it was 64.4%. The mean haemoglobin was 11.77 � 1.41 and 11.34 � 1.49 in government and private school girls, respectively, which was statistically significant (p=0.013). Conclusions: The prevalence of anaemia among the government school girls was lesser as compared to the private schools girls, suggesting the role of WIFS in the reduction of prevalence of anemia. WIFS programme may be extended to private schools as well.
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Introduction: "Adolescence" literally means "to emerge"or "to attain identity" and is essentially the period of rapidphysical and psychological development. The World HealthOrganization (WHO) defines “adolescent” as an individualbetween 10 to 19 years of age. About 19.7% of Indianpopulation is adolescents. Nutritional health problems areone of the important health problem faced by adolescents.Prevalence of anemia in adolescents (15-19 years) girls is54%. Underweight is seen among 46.4% adolescent girls.Hence this study was conducted to find out nutritional healthproblems of adolescent girls in a rural area of Nagpur district.Menstrual hygiene was also studied.Material and methods: A cross sectional study was carriedout in one of the randomly selected school in a rural area ofNagpur. Calculated sample size was 145, though the studywas carried out on 150 adolescent girls in August 2019 usinga pre-designed and pre- tested questionnaire.Results: Mean age of study participants was 14.87± 2.77years. Prevalence of anemia was found to be 80%. Prevalenceof undernutrition was 36%. None of the student receivedweekly iron and folic acid tablets in last three months. Only28% study subjects received information of menstrual hygieneprior to menarche.Conclusion: Prevalence of anemia and undernutrition wasfound to be high in a school of rural area of Nagpur district.WIFS program should be strengthened through inter-sectoralcollaboration among health and education sectors
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Background: The sustainable development goal emphasises on reduction in mothers dying due to pregnancy. Recommended care for the pregnant mothers will help achieve this goal. Tamil Nadu is one of the best performing state in maternal and child health care. Author analysed the full antenatal care coverage of pregnant mothers of the districts of Tamil Nadu by using National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4 data.Methods: Author did a secondary data analysis of NFHS 4 data for the districts of Tamil Nadu for understanding the MCH coverage.Results: Tamil Nadu showed 45% full AN coverage with 46.3% in urban and 43.8% in rural population, among 32 districts, Krishnagiri (65.5%) is the best performing and Virudhunagar (13.7%) is the poorest performing district of Tamil Nadu. Full AN coverage includes at least 4 AN check-up, vaccination of tetanus toxoid and consumption of 100 IFA tablets in last pregnancy. Tamil Nadu showed 81.1% of at-least 4 AN visit, 71% with vaccination for TT and 64% on consumption of 100 IFA tables. Similar coverage trend among the components of full ANC coverage is seen among all the districts of Tamil Nadu.Conclusion: Focusing on the coverage of IFA tablet consumption and also showing special interest among the rural population will increase the coverage. A detailed assessment for understanding the reasons for poor performance among the districts of Tamil Nadu is needed for better evidence-based practices.
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Background: Anaemia is a major health problem creating an extreme burden on public health, especially in developing countries. Globally, anaemia affects 1.62 billion people, which corresponds to 24.8% of the population. The government of India is implementing various programs to bring down the prevalence of anaemia including iron and folic acid supplementation to school going children. This study attempts to assess the prevalence of anaemia among school going children of first to the tenth standard, in rural and urban areas of Mysore and Chamarajanagara districts of southern part of Karnataka state, India.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in 50 selected schools of Mysore and Chamarajanagara districts for a period of one academic year, and 8719 students were evaluated for anaemia. The data was analyzed using appropriate software and statistical methods.Results: The prevalence of anaemia among school going children in Mysore and Chamarajanagar districts was 27.6%. While 22.7% of the girls showed the signs of anaemia, only 19.2% of boys showed anaemia. The prevalence of anaemia was high in rural areas than urban areas and maximum prevalence was seen among high school students followed by upper primary school students and lower primary school students.Conclusions: The total prevalence of anaemia among school children in Mysore and Chamarajanagara districts was 27.6%. The prevalence of anaemia was below the currently available national standards. This low prevalence could be attributed to the continuing care with yearly screening and iron and folic acid tablets provided to the study population under National Health Mission.
ABSTRACT
Anaemia is a condition in which red blood cells have fewer haemoglobin molecules than normal, or fewer red blood cells overall, and thus less ability to carry oxygen to tissues in the body. Nutritional anaemia is a major public health problem in India and is primarily due to iron deficiency. Symptoms of iron deficiency anaemia are primarily non specific and become apparent when there is severe anaemia. The National Iron Plus Initiative (NIPI) is the most ambitious and comprehensive anaemia control programme in the world. The process documentation team conducted 170 interviews in March, April and May 2016 among officials and frontline workers at state, district, block, sector/cluster and field levels and among NIPI beneficiaries in Odisha. To achieve variation in responses and to get full set of information on how NIPI was being implemented, process documentation and survey data were collected in four districts of Odisha– Keonjhar, Jagatsinghpur, Bhadrak and Kalahandi. This review will give an overview about the operational issues encountered during the National Iron Plus Initiative documentation in Odisha.
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Background: Anemia is a major public health problem especially in adolescent age group because of its intergenerational impact. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India launched the weekly iron and folic acid supplementation programme for adolescent girls and boys. The objectives of the study were to study the awareness of the weekly iron and folic acid supplementation in preventing anemia in the study subjects; to assess the implementation of the weekly iron and folic acid supplementation in government schools and anganwadi centres.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the 4 government schools and 11 anganwadi centres of the urban field practising area of a tertiary health care centre, Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad. All the students who were present at the time of study, the teachers and anganwadi workers, who gave consent were included. The study was carried out for a period of 3 months (August to October, 2018) using a pretested schedule.Results: A total of 313 students, 21 teachers and 10 anganwadi workers had participated in the study. Among school students, only 15% had awareness of anemia. Girls had better knowledge than boys (p<0.05). The benefits of iron folic acid tablets were known to 17% students and 67% teachers. Most commonly side effects were nausea, vomiting and stomach pain. Irregular supply of tablets and poor maintainence of records was seen.Conclusions: The supply and distribution of tablets was found to be not in accordance with the guidelines of the programme.There is need of regular orientation to the teachers and anganwadi workers and nutrition education meetings for behaviour change communication to the parents.
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Anaemia is one of the major public health problems worldwide andis associated with morbidity and mortality. Anaemic adolescent girls are at high risk of having physical and cognitive functional disorders. According to the WHO global database, anaemia affects 46% of school children globally. Because of health and socioeconomic problems, the prevalence of anaemia is higher in developing countries than in developed ones with50% in Africa where children, adolescent girls and pregnant women are the most vulnerable groups to anaemia. In Rwanda, there is little national data on anaemia and its likely causes amongst adolescent girls. This study aimed to assess the extent of anaemia and associated risk factors amongadolescent girls aged between 10-19 years old attending St Therese Cliniclocated in Eastern province of Rwanda. A cross sectional study design was conducted at St Therese Clinic and included 231 adolescent girls aged between 10-19 years old who were conveniently selected from the consented participants. The hemocue apparatus which uses a modified azide-methaemoglobin reaction was used to measureHaemoglobin (Hb) level in the whole blood. Pre-tested structured questionnaires were used to collect data on anticipated risk factors. The prevalence of anaemia was found to be 29% among adolescents girls. Among 67 anaemic girls (29%), 45girls (19.47%) had mild anaemia while 18 girls (7.79%) had moderate anaemia and 4grils (1.73%) had severe anaemia. It was found that malaria, menarche, educational status of their parents and meal intake frequency are significantly associated with anaemia, p value <0.05. Anaemia is highly prevalent in adolescent girls. Thus, policy makers has to prevent and control anaemia in this particular vulnerable group through but not limited to Iron/folic acid supplement, malaria eradication and promoting nutrition education programme targeting adolescent girls and their mothers, heads of primaryand secondary schools mainly on the utilisationof easily availableand affordable iron rich diet
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Background: Prevalence of anemia in India is among the highest in the world. Apart from other causes of anemia, iron or folate deficiency is the most common cause, especially during pregnancy. Although, supplementation of diet with iron and folic acid (IFA) tablets has been a part of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Program for over three decades, levels of IFA intake during pregnancy remain low. Material and methods: A descriptive study was conducted among 132 postnatal women registered in Anumanthai primary health center (PHC), Villupuram, Tamil Nadu, catering to a population of 56,142 through eight subcenters to explore factors affecting compliance to IFA. One hundred thirty-two postnatal women were interviewed after taking informed consent in local language using a pretested structured proforma. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS Version 16. Results: Majority of the study subjects (134; 98%) were in the age group of 20-29 years. First-trimester registration was 99.4% and 99.3% received at least three antenatal visits at the PHC. Fifty-four (40%) of the study subjects did not consume any IFA tablet at all. Only 31.1% of the study subjects were aware that IFA tablets should be consumed for 100 days. About 25.9% consumed at least above 90 IFA tablets and only 5.9% consumed more than 100 IFA tablets. Nausea and vomiting 85 (63%) and counseling by village health nurse 115 (89%) were reported to be the most common hindering and facilitating factors, respectively. Conclusion: Despite high rates of antenatal visits, the intake of IFA was low.