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Poorest Still Go Hungry
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Written By: Amantha Perera/ipsnews
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Posted Date: 1/26/2012 9:55:12 AM
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Experts agree that Sri Lanka's free pre and
postnatal clinics across the island nation have helped bring infant
mortality down to 15 per 1,000 live births and the under-five mortality
rate to 21 per 1,000 live births.
But, beneath that general
picture of success lie pockets of vulnerability where poverty and lack
of awareness are causing high levels of malnutrition in this country,
classified as a middle-income country by the International Monetary Fund
in 2010.
According to a November 2011 paper released by the Institute of Policy
Studies, a semi-government research body, a fifth of children under the
age of five suffer from malnourishment, as also every sixth newborn.
"This is a fairly high rate," Angela de Silva, lecturer at the Colombo
University and a vice-president of the Nutrition Society of Sri Lanka,
told IPS. She said the high rates of malnourishment were primarily "due
to certain pockets with high levels of underweight."
"Overall, there has been an improvement in underweight over the years
and, for most areas, underweight is not a huge problem. But the
government’s (most recent) demographic and health survey (2006-2007)
indicated that certain areas were badly off," de Silva said.
One of the areas identified by the Institute’s report was the Nuwara
Eliya district, famed for its tea plantations. "Children in the estate
sector are twice as likely to be underweight than children in the urban
sector," said the report titled ‘Eradicating malnutrition in Sri Lanka,
looking beyond health’.
Around five percent of Sri Lanka's 21 million people are from the
plantation sector - descendants of workers brought from south India in
the 19th century by British colonialists to work in the tea plantations.
The research paper said that one in three children under the age of five
was underweight in the plantation sector and 40 percent of newborn
babies had low birth weight.
The main reason for these levels of high undernourishment appears to be
poverty. According to the government's indicators, at least 11 percent
of the plantation population lives below the national poverty line of 27
dollars per month.
The research paper said that over 60 percent of the same population was categorised as poor.
"Evidence from many countries has proved that poverty plays a large part
in malnutrition as access to resources will |
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