San Salvador, 21 nov (EFE).-Central America need focused its objectives on combating child chronic malnutrition, as it is a “critical” in the region problems, Efe said an expert from the World Food Programme (WFP).
“Central America is in a critical situation with regard to chronic malnutrition because (are) middle-income countries,” said Dorte Ellehammer, representative of the LDCs in this country, in the context of the presentation of the “map of hunger, El Salvador 2011”, it details the proportion of malnutrition in the municipalities.
Therefore, the countries of the region needed “work much more focused” to combat this problem, i.e. who should work directly with the affected population, especially “children under five and pregnant women”, to prevent more infants born with malnutrition, he added.
“There must be clear that it is not an intervention by one month, two months,” noted at the time that emphasized the need to “have national programmes that are really focused and (give) a follow-up to (…)” “to avoid the problem to grow and to finish it”.
Ellehammer noted that Guatemala is the “worst indices of malnutrition” country in the region.
On average in Guatemala 49 per cent of children suffer from malnutrition, while Nicaragua 21% suffers from this disease, in Honduras 29% and El Salvador 19.2%, according to the WFP.
Ellehammer stressed that although El Salvador has a national average of malnutrition relatively less than other countries in the region, that doesn’t mean it’s not “alarming”, because for WFP “no matter what the percentage”, pointed out.
The map revealed that there is many municipalities which exceed the average level of malnutrition in the country and that there are even seven different areas of the country, whose percentage ranges from 38.3% to 48.6%.
262 El Salvador 118 municipalities are within the Group of “medium” malnutrition, 28 in “high” and seven in “very high” malnutrition, and the rest appear in the Group of “low” and “very low”.
“This map is an indicator that if there are problems in those municipalities”, expressed Ellehammer.
Added that “If there is malnutrition among children, it is an indicator that there is hunger in families”, but clarified that there is no famine in the country, but “food insecurity”.
It is estimated that only in the rural area of this Central American country “25% of the population is in a State of food insecurity,” explained the programme officer of WFP in the country, Elbyn Ramirez, during the presentation of the map.
Clarified that the 25% “may have been high up to 40 %”, after the damage caused by the rain storm that affected the country in mid-October and caused 34 dead and thousands homeless. EFE
