Fearing third wave, Rajasthan health department focus on kid nutrition | Jaipur News

JAIPUR: Since a lot of experts believe that the third wave would affect children, health department is taking measures to address issues related to nutrition of children. Direction have been issued to officials in districts to address malnutrition and to monitor the growth of children and provide age-appropriate complimentary feed. Officials are also focusing on vaccinating children against other diseases, which are covered under national vaccination programme.
Also, parents of such children are being told to give home-based energy food. “As far as immunisation is concerned, outreach activities are on along with a due list of children to be vaccinated has been provided to the field staff,” said health minister Raghu Sharma.
It is anticipated that anaemic and malnourished children will be more vulnerable to Covid infection, as anaemia and malnutrition weaken the immune system, due to which children are prone to infection. Taking the fear at a serious note, Sharma said the state was moving towards ‘Anaemia-Free Rajasthan’. “We have been distributing iron folic acid (IFA) syrups and tablets to children and adolescents at their homes by Accredited Social Health Workers (ASHAs) from May 2020.” The syrup has to be given twice a week after food to children aged 6 to 59 months, while children aged 5-9 years are being given pink IFA tablets, which are to be taken once a week after food and adolescents (10-19 years) are being given blue IFA tablets that are to be taken once a week after food. The health department is also appealing parents to get vaccinated to protect their children. “To protect children from the expected third wave of Covid, parents of the children less than 18 years should get Covid vaccine administered,” Sharma said.
Besides, more than 40,000 swasthya mitras will be utilised for monitoring anaemia, malnutrition and immunisation besides other activities.