Adolescent India needs to be anemia free

Over 50% adolescents and women in India are anemic. We need to consolidate clinical and public health initiatives for the well-being of adolescents. Various programmes being run by different Ministries for adolescents need to be integrated for better outcomes.

The International Association for Adolescent Health (IAAH) 11th World Congress on Adolescent Health, ‘Investing in Adolescent Health – the Future is Now’ was held the first in India for the first time.

Addressing the Inaugural session of the IAAH 11th World Congress on Adolescent Health, Preeti Sudan, Secretary Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on said that the government was in the process of putting in place dedicated, preventive and promotive strategies in schools to make India anemia-free.

Ms Sudan said India has some pathbreaking legislations on HIV and Mental Health and had a comprehensive National Health Programme for Adolescents – Rashtriya Kishore Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK) launched in 2014 across 230 districts.

Dr. Vinod Paul, Member, NITI Aayog, said anemia was a bigger challenge though we often speak of non- communicable diseases which need to be dealt with urgency. Pointing out that youth was India’s future, Dr Paul said if India had to benefit from the demographic dividend, it was important to invest in adolescent health. Talking about the challenges, he said there was a dearth of quality data on adolescents and implementing the ambitious adolescent health programme on the ground was equally tough.

Dr Paul recommended setting of specific milestones for the Sustainable Development Goals.

Professor Susan Sawyer, President, International Association for Adolescent Health, said it was for the first time that there was a strategy in place for women, children and adolescents.

Adolescence is a critical time in the growth of an individual, and now was the time to invest in them. Prof Sawyer further said that India – with over 253 million adolescents – was significantly investing in adolescents, children, and women, adding that this was the largest meeting of the IAAH with representation from all regions of the world.

Dr. Sunil Mehra, Executive Director, MAMTA Health Institute for Mother and Child said that there was a strong contingent of young people at the World Congress who can guide us to draft our future policies. He said the participants would learn and share problems, challenges, actions and resources during the deliberations.

Anemia Facts and Figures:

 The world is home to 1.2 billion adolescents and India has the largest population of adolescents in the world -- 253 million -- with every fifth in the world being an Indian and every second adolescent being an Asian.

 India tops the list of nations with most anemic women and children. India is ranked 170th in terms of anemia among women as per the Global Nutrition Report 2016. The latest figures show a decline of 23 percent in disabilities caused by anaemia since 2005, but it is still the highest in the world. In 2015, 10.56 percent of total YLDs (years lost due to disease) were due to iron- deficiency anemia. Compared to Brics nations, these percentages are twice Russia’s and thrice China’s.

 Iron-deficiency anaemia is directly linked to malnutrition and poverty. The Indian government has allocated $5.5 billion (Rs 36,707 crore) to nutritional schemes such as the Integrated Child Development Scheme and the National Health Mission. This is $700 million less than the estimated requirement, according to the authors of the nutrition report.

Suggestions to tackle anemia:

 In spite of various government nutritional supplementation programmes we are not able to reduce this morbidity significantly.

 The challenge before us now is to ensure the implementation of this initiative in its entirety and to further build upon it. The initiated policies have to be continued with great vigor, at all the levels of health care. New approaches must be taken into account to cover wider population.

 Often, programmes stress solely on the provision of supplements, thereby neglecting the counselling component.

 Another key intervention is the need for an integrated multisector approach to tackling anemia.

For instance, severe anemia is also associated with malaria and bacterial infection. Thus, access to sanitary facilities must be a part of a comprehensive anemia control strategy.

 Education is another factor — the fear of side-effects and misinformation emerge as primary barriers to regular intake of the provided iron supplements.

 At the grassroot levels, teachers, school counsellors and frontline health workers must be specifically trained on this issue, given the central role that counselling plays.

 At the macro-level, anemia control programmes must shift to a state-centric and state-led approach given the large inter-state variations.

If we can immunize all the under 5 population of our country and declare India polio free then why can’t we prevent anemia.