According to the municipal supervisor of the nutrition program in Benguela, Filomena Manuel, early weaning and an unbalanced diet are at the basis of the increase in cases of malnourished children up to five years old.
Filomena Manuel, cited by Angop, said that in the "A and F" zones, on the outskirts of the city of Benguela, the abandonment of children has increased. They end up taking care of other children, while their mothers work in the field or in the informal markets during the day.
The health official said that every day 400 cases of malnutrition arrive at the medical services in Benguela, with the neighborhood of Asseque being the most critical, with high malnutrition indexes, despite being an area favorable to the practice of agriculture.
The doctor said that in many neighborhoods of the "A and F" zones, the screening teams of the nutrition program have been facing, on average, more than 40 cases/day of moderate and severe malnutrition, including many children with only one meal a day.
According to Filomena Manuel, children as young as one year old are the most worrying age group prone to malnutrition.
"From five to 14 years, we have a very small number, although we have also seen some adults with malnutrition in Benguela," she said, stressing that the South African non-governmental organization Joint Aid Management (JAM) has helped by providing soybeans.
The United Nations Children's Fund has also been supporting and recently Benguela received three containers with products to treat malnutrition in patients in the outpatient program.
The lectures and screening campaigns in the most distant communities, without health units, have been the bets to reverse the current situation, said Filomena Manuel, stressing that all cases of malnutrition are referred to the only reference unit in Benguela.
However, the General Hospital of Benguela is without capacity to attend to patients with malnutrition, said the municipal supervisor of the nutrition program in Benguela.
"Each bed has two children. It is a worrying situation," she informed, pointing out as a solution the opening in other health units of more therapeutic programs for outpatients, the so-called 'PTPA', which already total 27.
"In July, 492 children were discharged and are being followed up under this protocol," she said.
The 'PTPA' attend all children with severe or moderate malnutrition, without hospitalization criteria, namely complications such as diarrhea or cough, while the cases of severe malnutrition are treated at the Benguela nutrition center.
