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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Flour, Sugar – Vehicles of Food Fortification Plan

Diógenes Pina

SANTO DOMINGO, Feb 21 2007 (IPS) - Lack of vitamin A is associated with the deaths of 350 people a year in the Dominican Republic, where some 400 babies are born annually with brain and spinal cord defects caused by folic acid deficiency, according to official statistics. In addition, many women are at risk of serious complications during childbirth due to iron deficiency anaemia.

On Feb. 15 the Public Health Ministry, with the cooperation of international organisations, launched a national food fortification programme aimed at dramatically reducing the rates of iron and vitamin A deficiency in women and children.

The project will enable all wheat flour milled for human consumption to be fortified with iron, folic acid and other B-complex vitamins, while sugar will be fortified with vitamin A.

The Dominican authorities hope food enrichment with vitamins and minerals will reduce iron deficiency anaemia rates from 27 percent to 20 percent in children under five.

Another aim is to bring vitamin A deficiency, which currently affects 22.7 percent of the population, down to 10 percent by the end of the three-year project, and to reduce the number of babies born with birth defects to the brain and spinal cord by 20 percent.

The programme is in receipt of a grant of nearly 1.9 million dollars from the Geneva-based Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), for which the World Bank serves as trust agent. The GAIN grant is part of a wider programme costing 13.45 million dollars, to include contributions from food producers and consumers.


The donation from GAIN will support the programme developed by the National Micronutrients Commission, made up of public sector, civil society organisations, food production companies and research institutions.

“GAIN grants are awarded on a competitive basis and we congratulate the Commission on the launch of this project, which we are confident will bring significant and sustained health benefits to the people of the Dominican Republic,” Executive Director of GAIN Marc Van Ameringen said in a press release.

The donation will contribute to the purchase of premix equipment, food control and regulatory systems, communication and marketing campaigns, impact studies and administration costs.

Six flour mills and seven sugar mills are participating in the project. By 2009, 80 percent of the Dominican Republic’s population of around nine million people should be consuming fortified flour and sugar. The government is planning to pass a law to make fortification of these basic staples mandatory.

“Through this project fortification will become a more nutritional and healthier way of processing flour and sugar in the country, with the cost being absorbed by the food companies, with no or negligible increases for the consumer,” said Public Health Minister Dr. Bautista Rojas Gómez.

“All such actions (of enriching foods) are a good idea, because they improve people’s quality of life,” Silvio Minier, an expert in social policy, told IPS. The trouble with these programmes is that they are not necessarily long-term, he said.

Local authorities say the project is part of the efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the international community in September 2000, particularly those related to improving maternal and child health.

The fourth MDG is to reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate for children under five by 2015, on 1990 levels. In the Dominican Republic the present mortality rate of 38 per 1,000 live births would have to fall to 13 per 1,000.

Christina Malmberg Calvo, World Bank representative in the Dominican Republic, said that it was time to stop talking about fortifying flour and sugar, and to start producing and consuming healthy foods that are richer in nutrients, which would improve the lives of all Dominicans.

According to a comparative study by the World Food Programme (WFP), malnutrition in this Caribbean country has increased in recent years, from 6.1 percent of the population in 2000 to 7.2 percent in 2006.

Depending on which survey results are accepted, the number of children under five suffering from chronic malnutrition is between 56,000 and 74,000 in the Dominican Republic, Pavel Isa Contreras of the WFP told the local weekly Clave. The Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that 27 percent of Dominicans suffer from hunger.

Isa Contreras said that it was likely that the bank collapses of 2003, which triggered the worst economic crisis in the country’s history, were directly linked to the rise in malnutrition.

Bankruptcy in three of the main banks cost the Dominican economy over two billion dollars. According to the Report on Poverty in the Dominican Republic, published in 2006 by the World Bank, after the banking crisis about 1.5 million Dominicans were plunged into poverty.

 
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