Doris Obinna
As a way of contributing in the global scaling up nutrition movement, Olpharm Nutrition, in partnership with Hexagon Nutrition, has officially launched Hexagon Nutrition products in the Nigeria market to help curb the burden of under-nutrition in the country.
The number one global nutrition company with presence in over 72 countries, accreditations by global bodies and alliance with international organisations and non-governmental organisation, said it is squarely facing the Nigeria nutrition challenges in proffering solutions by identifying the support need to accelerate efforts and achieve success.
According to managing director/CEO, Olpharm Nigeria Limited, Johnson Olusetire, global bodies identify good nutrition as the foundation for development. “Well-nourished women, children, adolescents and adults live healthier lives, with greater resilience to life-threatening disease.
He said: “Global progress hinges on greater investment in nutrition. It is estimated that investing an additional US $2.3 billion per year in a limited set of priority nutrition interventions over the next 10 years will help to save 2.3 million lives and result in 50 million fewer stunted children by 2025.”
Quoting the United Nation’s Children Fund (UNICEF’s) latest report, he said, the state of the World’s Children 2019: Children, food and nutrition: Growing well in a changing world examines the issue of children, food and nutrition and provides a fresh perspective on this rapidly evolving challenge.
He added that 149 million children are stunted or too short for their age, while about 50 million children are wasted, or too thin for their height and 340 million children or one in two suffer from deficiencies in essential vitamins and nutrients such as vitamin A and iron as 40 million children are overweight or obese.
“At the centre of this profound triple burden of malnutrition; under-nutrition, hidden hunger and overweight, is a broken food system that fails to provide children with the diets they need to grow healthily.
“Governments, development agencies, foundations, civil society groups, businesses and the research community have started to prioritize nutrition – as a health, education, development, and economic issue,” he said.
Also on her part, the Director of Pharmaceutical Services, Lagos State Ministry of Health, Dr Moyosore Adejumo said Nigeria needs to scale up her nutrition intervention to curb mortality due to malnutrition.
She said the facts and figures on malnutrition in county seem not to have changed; lamenting that Nigerian does not pay adequate attention to their nutritional needs which ends up causing a rise in non-communicable diseases.
She said nutritional supplements are necessary to balance the nutritional produce from the farm, while she urges the public to ensure they eat right to avoid disease and mortality.