Peru - Peru's undernourishment level is one of the highest in America

Citation

(2007), "Peru - Peru's undernourishment level is one of the highest in America", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 20 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2007.06220eab.012

Peru - Peru's undernourishment level is one of the highest in America

PeruPeru’s undernourishment level is one of the highest in America

The Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) revealed that Peru’s undernourishment level is one of the highest in America. The organization especially emphasized the numbers for child undernourishment which haven’t changed over the last ten years and tends to increase.

The PAHO representative in Peru, Manuel Peña, remarked that despite numerous aid campaigns and programs ascending to 250 million dollars annually, the numbers haven’t changed in years.

“The problem of child malnutrition will not be solved with better and more frequent nourishing”, Peña explained. “It requires effective policies and actions from all parts of our society, integral nutritional interventions, and social investments focusing on the most vulnerable part of the population. We also need to improve the quality of education, public health care, and access to potable water and sanitation systems in order to increase productivity and the capacity of families to generate income”.

He said it is necessary to consider the social determinants that affect children’s health: access to health services, houses that are connected to sanitation and sewage systems, potable water, vector control, nourishing security, consumption of iodized salt, adult alphabetization, education, etc.

The Peruvian regions with the highest levels of malnutrition are Cuzco with 50 per cent of the population, followed by Huancavelica and Huánuco with 40 per cent both. Peña recommended a strategy that focuses primarily on diminishing undernourishment in these areas.

The country’s common goal has to be reducing chronic undernourishment from 25 per cent to 20 per cent between 2006-2011, or one percent per year. In Peru the nationwide undernourishment level remained unimproved. It lowered in metropolitan areas but increased in rural and poorer areas which increased inequality among Peru’s population.

The statistics of the PAHO seem to be different than the numbers provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Their 2006 analysis stated that Peru has a moderate level of undernourishment; 12 per cent of the population is undernourished. Both the proportion and the number of undernourished people have decreased from 1990-1992, benchmark period of the World Food Summit (WFS) and the Millennium Declaration (MD), to 2002-2004, the latest period available.

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