Question

Choose a country of your choice, the key nutrition issues including access to safe drinking water, safety with cooking (such as cooking over an open flame in a closed room) faced by the country, who they most affect, key risk factors, their link with health and economic development, and what might be done to address them in cost-effective ways.

Answer 1

Yemen

Yemen also known as Republic of Yemen, a country situated at southern part of Arabian peninsula, is a country of about 527970 square kilometres, and has a large cost line of about 2000 kms. Once a blooming and prospering country has now turned into a devastating place of destruction and conflict. The sanctions towards the Yemen after it entered an arms conflict with Saudi led coalition backed government forces, and in Yemen the Houthi forces.

Till date more than 17,500 civilians are killed and injured since 2015, and many killed in air raids were women and children. More than 20 million people in Yemen are experiencing food insecurity; 10 million of them are at risk of famine.

Yemen before war was affected with shortage of economy and since the war has started many have nothing to eat and they have no food. Many children have become malnourished beyond imagination.

The UNICEF has announced that only 15 percent of children are eating a daily recommended diet and the nutrition crisis has become sever in several parts of the country. The statement of UNICEF says that “Around 80 per cent of Yemenis are estimated to be in debt and struggling to pay for food, water, transportation and vital health services. With the deepening economic crisis, 1.8 to 2.8 million children are at risk of being pushed into acute food insecurity and many more children could fall into life-threatening severe acute malnutrition”

There are many reasons for this

a. The first and foremost being economic and trade sanctions towards Yemen

b. Military exploitation

c. No economic structure left to support the people

d. Accessibility as the resources are either captured or under limited control

e. There is no available resources to develop food for such a large scale people

f. Environment not favouring the cultivation

g. No available young hands for work, as some or the other way they are involved in works of war

There is direct relation between health and economic development, as they go hand in hand, it is needed that healthy young generation leads to future of the nation and in other way seen as health index of a country takes economic development of a country forward.

In case of Yemen the maternal mortality and maternal nutrition index has fallen to serious levels that the children are born with malnutrition. This will lead to underfive deaths and neonatal death along with infant death rates to raise above normal.

The solution

a. Community management of acute malnutrition

b. Outpatient therapeutic programs

c. Outreach programs

d. Rehabilitation of displaced especially children

e. Education on young and child feeding

f. Supply chain stoppage and hindrance should be stopped

g. Meet the daily needs of the community

h. Seize fire should be done for sake of people of the country

i. Opening the blockage and impending humanitarian access