Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Much to the surprise of the district administration and officials, the teams of the health department have found over 71 kids suffering from severe acute malnourished (SAM) during the screening of kids under the ongoing ‘Dastak Campaign’.
Moreover, the health officials have also found eight kids who were medically complicated while 27 kids were found severely anaemic. The teams of the health department have been running a door-to-door campaign to screen the children for various diseases, to identify and treat them.
The tall claims of the women and child development officials of running a drive to eradicate cases of malnutrition have fallen flat. Although only 11 per cent of the targeted kids were screened, the number of children falling under the SAM category and severely anaemic paints a grim picture.
“We started the Dastak Campaign on July 18 to screen over 3.85 lakh children of the city under the age of five years. In the last 10 days, our teams have screened over 43,000 kids in different parts of the city out of which 71 children were found under SAM while 27 were severely anaemic,” district immunization officer DrTarun Gupta said.
He said that seven of the severely malnourished kids have been admitted to a nutrition rehabilitation centre. “Over 400 teams have been conducting the door-to-door campaign across the district. The team members include anganwadi workers, ASHAs, paramedical staff, and others.
We will continue the campaign till August 31 and later we will submit the report to the administration,” Dr Gupta said The teams are spreading awareness among the residents regarding childhood abnormalities, malnutrition among children and nutrition for newborns during the campaign.
