NAIROBI (AlertNet) - Around half of Somali women and children are anaemic, according to a study by the United Nations, a condition largely blamed on poverty and family culture.
The research by the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) was carried out jointly with the U.N. agencies for children, food aid and health in Puntland, Somaliland and central Somalia in 2009.
The study - the first of its kind in the conflict-ravaged Horn of Africa nation - found that 50 percent of women, 30 percent of school-aged children and 60 percent of children under five were anaemic. One third of children and half of adult women had Vitamin A deficiency.
The FSNAU described these levels as "shocking", noting that for anaemia, they are among the highest in Africa.
"The study found very high levels of anaemia in women, who have the highest risk of dying if pregnant and once they give birth," Grainne Moloney, FSNAU's acting chief technical advisor, told AlertNet.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), anaemia - where the body has an abnormally low count of red blood cells, most commonly due to iron deficiency - is the world's second leading cause of disability.
It is associated with fatigue, weakness, dizziness and drowsiness. In children, it can delay growth, and raises the risk of infectious disease and death.
Vitamin A deficiency causes night blindness and makes it more likely that children will die of diseases like measles.
Many Somali families - particularly women and children - consume mainly cereal-based diets, which lack key vitamins and minerals.
"Although children may seem healthy as they are not very thin, these underlying deficiencies mean these children are still malnourished," Moloney said in a statement.
"The required nutrient-rich foods, such as meat, eggs, fish, vegetables and fruits, are often too expensive for poor households to buy and the problem is further exacerbated by inadequate health care and sanitation, disease and a lack of appropriate infant and young child feeding," he added.
MEAT FOR MEN
Moloney told AlertNet the situation is also made worse by family culture, which dictates that Somali women give all the nutritious food to the men.
"There must be efforts to attempt to change this behaviour by telling men to let their wives eat meat too," he said.
Lawlessness and violence across the country mean aid agencies are struggling to reach those in need of food and nutrition assistance.
Fighting has killed 21,000 Somalis since the start of 2007 and driven 1.5 million from their homes in one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
The U.N. food aid agency has suspended its work in much of southern Somalia due to threats by al Shabaab rebels, a hardline Islamist militant group that now controls large parts of Somalia.
The FSNAU was set up by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation to provide aid agencies with reliable data from the chaotic country.
Anaemia is also a problem in richer industrialised countries, affecting 30-40 percent of pre-school children and pregnant women, according to the WHO.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
