Bangladesh. Health Status Overview
DISEASE AND MALNUTRITION
Child malnutrition in Bangladesh is amongst the highest in the world. Two-thirds of the children, under the age of five, are under-nourished and about 60% of them, who are under six, are stunted. More than 45 percent of rural families and 76 percent of urbanfamilies were below the acceptable caloric intake level. Malnutrition is passed on through generations as malnourished mothers give birth to malnourished children. According to the World Bank, about one-third of babies in Bangladesh are born with low birthweight, increasing infant mortality rate, and leads to increasing risk of diabetes and heart aliments in adulthood. According to UNICEF, one neonate dies in Bangladesh every three to four minutes; 120 000 neonates die every year.Malnutrition in Bangladesh has been a persistent problem for the poverty-stricken country. The World Bank estimates that Bangladesh is ranked 1st in the world of the number of children suffering from malnutrition In Bangladesh, 26% of the population areundernourished and 46% of the children suffers from moderate to severe underweight problem. 43% of children under 5 years old are stunted. One in five preschool age children are vitamin A deficient and one in two are anemic. Women also suffer mostfrom malnutrition. To provide their family with food they pass on quality food which are essential for their nutrition.
Causes of malnutrition
Most terrain of Bangladesh is low-lying and is prone to flooding. A large population of the country lives in areas that are at risk of experiencing extreme annual flooding that brings large destruction to the crops. Every year, 20% to 30% of Bangladesh is flooded. Floods threaten food security and their effects on agricultural production cause food shortage.The health and sanitation environment also affects malnutrition. Inadequacies in water supply, hygiene and sanitation have direct impacts on infectious diseases, such as malaria, parasitic diseases, and schistosomiasis. People are exposed to both water scarcity andpoor water quality. Groundwater is often found to contain high arsenic concentration. Sanitation coverage in rural areas was only 35% in 1995. Almost one in three people in Bangladesh defecates in the open among the poorest families. Only 32% of thelatrines in rural areas attain the international standards for a sanitary latrine. People are exposed to feces in their environment daily. The immune system falls and the disease processes exacerbate loss of nutrients, which worsens malnutrition.The diseasesalso contribute through the loss of appetite, lowered absorption of vitamins and nutrients, and loss of nutrients through diarrhea or vomiting.
Unemployment and job problems also lead to malnutrition in Bangladesh. In 2010, the unemployment rate was 5.1%. People do not have working facilities all year round and they are unable to afford the minimum cost of a nutritious diet due to the unsteadyincome.
Health effects
Undernourished mothers often give birth to infants who will have difficulty growing up and developing into a healthy teenager. They develop health problems such as wasting, stunting, underweight, anemia, night blindness and iodine deficiency. As a result,Bangladesh has a high child mortality rate and is ranked 57 in the under-5 mortality rank.Economic effects
As 40% of the population in Bangladesh are children, malnutrition and its health effects among children can potentially lead to a lower educational attainment rate. Only 50% of an age group of children in Bangladesh managed to enroll into secondary schooleducation. This would result in a low-skilled and low productivity workforce which would affect the economic growth rate of Bangladesh with only 3% GDP growth in 2009.Efforts to combat malnutrition
Many programmes and efforts have been implemented to solve the problem of malnutrition in Bangladesh. UNICEF together with the government of Bangladesh and many other NGOs such as Helen Keller International, focus on improving the nutritional access ofthe population throughout their life-cycle from infants to the child-bearing mother. The impacts of the intervention are significant. Night blindness has reduced from 3.76% to 0.04% and iodine-deficiency among school-aged children has decreased from 42.5% to33.8%.Maternal and child health
One in eight women receive delivery care from medically trained providers and fewer than half of all pregnant women in Bangladesh seek ante-natal care. Inequity in maternity care is significantly reduced by ensuring the accessibility of heath services. In June2011, the United Nations Population Fund released a report on The State of the World's Midwifery. It contained new data on the midwifery workforce and policies relating to newborn and maternal mortality for 58 countries. The 2010 maternal mortality rate per100,000 births for Bangladesh is 340. This is compared with 338.3 in 2008 and 724.4 in 1990. The under 5 mortality rate, per 1,000 births is 55 and the neonatal mortality as a percentage of under 5's mortality is 57. The aim of this report is to highlight ways in whichthe Millennium Development Goals can be achieved, particularly Goal 4 – Reduce child mortality and Goal 5 – improve maternal health. In Bangladesh the number of midwives per 1,000 live births is 8 and the lifetime risk of death for pregnant women 1 in 110.
Source: Wikipedia
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