RESUMEN
Background: According to UNICEF report, 19.8% children under-five years in India are wasted, 48% are stunted and 42.8% are underweight. Multisectoral initiatives by the national and state governments are yet to reduce the burden of malnutrition. Jan Swasthya Sahyog (JSS) Health Centre in Chhattisgarh, plays a vital role in improving nutritional status of tribal under- three children attending the phulwaris (or creches). Objectives of this study were to assess the nutritional status of under-five children attending the phulwaris located under Bamhni sub center and to identify the common morbidities among these children.Methods: The researchers conducted health check-up for 357 children in the 19 phulwaris of Bamhni sub center spread over 16 villages.Results: Mean age of children attending the phulwaris was found to be 29±12.5 months. Among the 357 children, 128 (35.9%) were underweight; 53 (14.8%) were severely underweight; 35 (9.8%) were wasted; 18 (5%) were severely wasted; 58 (16.2%) stunted and 16 (4.5%) severely stunted according to WHO growth charts for weight for age, weight for height and height for age respectively. Point prevalence of morbidity was 142 (39.7%), which included respiratory tract infection (24.6%); scabies (8.4%); otitis media (3.1%); pyoderma (2.2%); developmental delay (2.2%); worm infestation (2.2%); sickle cell anemia (0.6%) and (0.3%) had epilepsy.Conclusions: Under nutrition was still prevalent among the children attending the phulwaris and upper respiratory tract infection was the most common morbidity.
RESUMEN
To assess if a weekly dose of iron and folic acid along with vitamin C, in the workplace would reduce the prevalence of anaemia. A multi-pronged intervention was carried out to reduce the prevalence of anaemia among workers of 7 apparel manufacturing factories using a regime consisting of a supervised single dose of albendazole [400mg] followed by a weekly dose of dried ferrous sulphate [150mg], folic acid [0.5mg] and vitamin C [100mg]. Workers were provided information on the causes of anaemia and its prevention. The total duration of the intervention was 16 weeks. Haemoglobin levels of a randomly selected sample of workers were tested before and after the intervention using a computerized non-cyan-meth-haemoglobin method. Of the 10810 workers who were enrolled a sample of 515 workers was randomly selected for the blood investigations. At the end of the intervention [18 weeks after the first blood sample was collected] only 361 out of the 515 who had been enrolled a little more than 16 weeks earlier still remained in the factories and among women 279 out of 385 enrolled were still working in the factories. In the 385 unmatched samples the number of anaemic women had reduced from 141 before the intervention to 79 after - mean haemoglobin increasing from 12.2 to 13.0 [p < 0.001] and in the 279 paired samples prevalence of anaemia had reduced from 105 to 58 - mean haemoglobin increasing from 12.1 to 13.0 [p < 0.001]. Our results demonstrated that in resource poor regions, where prevalence of anaemia is high, the workplace may be considered an ideal location to give a weekly supervised dose of iron, folic acid and vitamin C to effectively tackle the problem and probably improve worker efficiency