IDD: Not just a problem in remote mountainous areas |
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Long explained as a product of diets dependent on local foods produced from iodine-leached soils in remote mountain areas, Iodine Deficiency Disorders remain a prime health threat in urban slums, a story today from India reminds us. Nearly 24% of slum-dwelling children in Bhubaneswar had IDD, according to a new report in the Indian Journal of Paediatrics. "With the growing urbanization of the developing world, the challenges of combatting the erosion of a country's mental resources is far broader than the common observation of iodine deficiency in isolated populations living at high elevations," noted ICCIDD executive director David Haxton. The article concluded: Orissa has legal provision that bans sale of non-iodised salt in all districts. But the findings of the study that 51 percent of children in slums were consuming salt having stipulated iodine content of 15 ppm, which is far from the goal of USI at over 90 percent, has laid bare the fruitlessness of the prohibition.
Orissa is a meagre salt producer and depends mainly on imports. And there is no mechanism to monitor and ensure that all the salt brought in is iodised and in stipulated quantity.
There is an urgent need to improve the situation by enforcing quality maintenance and increasing awareness on consumption of iodised salt to prevent and control the IDD.
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