Unicef Confirms 0% Child Malnutrition in Cuba

by jcheva in Issues, December 17, 2009

UNICEF confirms that Cuba is the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean that child malnutrition has been eliminated.
The existence in the developing world 146 million children under five underweight, contrasts with the reality of Cuban infants, recognized worldwide for being outside the social evil. These alarming figures emerged in a recent report by the United Nations Fund for Children (UNICEF), entitled Progress for Children, A Report Card on Nutrition, released at UN headquarters. According to the document, the percentage of underweight children are 28 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, 17 in Middle East and North Africa, 15 in East Asia and the Pacific and seven in Latin America and the Caribbean. The complete table of Central and Eastern Europe, with five percent, and other developing countries, with 27 percent. Cuba has no such problems, is the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean that has eliminated severe child malnutrition, thanks to government efforts to improve the diet of the people, especially those most vulnerable. The harsh realities of the world show that 852 million people suffer from hunger and that 53 million live in Latin America. Only in Mexico there are five million 200 thousand people malnourished and in Haiti, three million 800 thousand, while across the globe die of hunger every year more than five million children. According to United Nations estimates, it would be very costly to achieve basic health and nutrition for all people in the Third World. Suffice to meet this target of 13 billion dollars a year additional to what is intended now, a figure that has never been achieved and that is meager when compared with the trillion spent each year on commercial advertising, over 400 thousand million in narcotic drugs or even eight billion spent on cosmetics in the United States. To the delight of Cuba, the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has also acknowledged that it is the nation with more progress in Latin America in the fight against malnutrition. The Cuban state guarantees basic food basket that allows the nutrition of its population? “At least at basic levels-through the distribution of regulated products. Similarly, adjustments are made cheap in other markets and local services to improve the nutrition of the Cuban people and to mitigate the food shortage. Especially keeps a constant watch on the livelihoods of children, and adolescents. Thus, attention to nutrition begins with the promotion of better nutrition and natural way of human kind. From the earliest days of age the incalculable benefits of breastfeeding justify all the efforts made in Cuba for health and development of their children.
This has enabled it to raise the percentage of newborns who remain until the fourth month of life, exclusive breastfeeding and even continue to consume milk, supplemented with other foods until six months old. Currently, 99 percent of newborns maternity leavers with exclusive breastfeeding than the proposed goal, which is 95 percent, according to official data, which indicates that all provinces to meet this target. Despite the difficult economic conditions traversed by the Island, ensuring food and nutrition of infants through daily delivery of a liter of fluid milk to all children from zero to seven years old. Adding to this the delivery of other foods, eg jams, juices and meats, which, depending on the available funds in the country, distributed equally across the ages smaller children. Until the age of 13 prioritizes the subsidized distribution of complementary products such as soy yogurt and natural disaster situations protects children by providing free food staples. The child-care centers incorporated into the (nursery) and primary schools are FULL TIME regime also benefit from the continuing effort to improve their diets in terms of dietary components and milk protein. With the support of agricultural production-even in conditions of severe drought, and increased food imports is reached nutrient intake above the standards set by FAO. In Cuba, this indicator is not adding fictitious average food consumption of the rich and the hungry. Additionally, the social consumption includes the school lunch that is distributed free to hundreds of thousands of students and education workers, special supplies of food to children through age 15 and people over 60 in the eastern provinces. On that list are provided for pregnant women, nursing mothers, elderly and disabled, food supplementation for children with low weight and size and food supply to municipalities of Pinar del Rio, Havana and Isla de la Juventud. These institutions were hit by hurricanes last year, while the provinces of Holguin, Las Tunas and Camaguey five municipalities are currently experiencing drought. In this effort works the World Food Program (WFP), which contributes to improving the nutritional status of vulnerable populations in the eastern region, where more profit of 631 thousand people. WFP cooperation with Cuba dating back to 1963 when the agency provided immediate assistance to victims of Hurricane Flora. To date, the country has accomplished in five development projects and 14 emergency operations. Recently, Cuba went from being a recipient to donor. The issue of malnutrition looms large in the UN campaign in 2015 to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, adopted at the Summit of Heads of State and Government held in 2000 and which have among their goals to eliminate extreme poverty and hunger by that date. But the Cubans say that these goals do not take away anyone’s dream, the UN itself puts the country at the forefront of compliance with such challenges in human development. Not without shortcomings, difficulties and limitations of a serious economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States more than four decades, Cuba does not show desperate nor alarming rates of child malnutrition. None of the 146 million children under five underweight living in the world today is Cuban.