Millions of people die for want of vitamins and minerals in diet

TENS of millions of people die and 20 million children are born mentally impaired every year because of a lack of vitamins and minerals in their diet — a problem that could be solved at the cost of a few cent per person, the UN Children’s Fund said yesterday.

"There is no excuse for not reaching every human being with these simple but lifesaving micronutrients," said UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy at a global meeting of government and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland. The agency chose the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum to release an advance copy of its study on vitamin and nutrient deficiency in the hope of getting its message across to political leaders and the media.

UNICEF estimates that as many as 20 million children are born mentally impaired every year because of iodine deficiency 6.6 million in India alone.

About 50,000 women die in childbirth because of severe iron deficiency, while a shortage of vitamin A affects the immune systems of 40% of children in developing countries and leads to around one million deaths per year. "It is no longer a question of seeking out symptoms of severe deficiency in individuals and treating them," said Bellamy. "It is a question of reaching out to whole populations to protect them against the devastating consequences of even moderate forms of vitamin and mineral deficiency."

UNICEF'S individual study of 80 countries found that more than 80% of children have iron deficiency anaemia in Benin, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique and Sierra Leone. Forty-eight percent of children born in Afghanistan are mentally impaired because of iodine deficiency.

In its report, produced in co-operation with the Ottawa-based Micronutrient Initiative, UNICEF said the problems can be tackled by adding essential vitamins and minerals to foods such as flour, salt, sugar, cooking oil and margarine.

Vulnerable groups such as children and women of childbearing age can also be treated with supplements.

Both plans could cost only a few cent per person per year, UNICEF said. The UN in 2002 set a target of eliminating iodine deficiency by 2005 and vitamin A deficiency by 2010. It also called for a 30% reduction in iron-deficiency anaemia by 2010.

There have already been some notable achievements, the agency said. Iodine deficiency worldwide has been halved to 15%. UNICEF added: "the goals will not be achieved, and the impact of vitamin and mineral deficiency will not be significantly reduced without a more ambitious, visionary and systematic commitment to deploy known solutions on the same scale as the known problems."