Vitamin and mineral deficiency: a global progress report

UN Chronicle, Sept-Nov, 2004 by Erika Reinhardt

In an effort to create a higher level of awareness by politicians, the press and the public of the scale and severity of vitamin and mineral deficiency, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Micronutrient Initiative, a not-for-profit organization specializing in addressing these deficiencies, launched in New York on 24 March 2004 a global progress report entitled "Vitamin & Mineral Deficiency" during the 31st session of the annual meeting of the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition. As many as a third of the world population do not meet their physical and intellectual potential because of vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and their severe effects have long been known. The accompanying "National Damage Assessment Reports" present data on the toll being taken by this deficiency in eighty developing countries.

The report states that less extreme cases result in: iron deficiency, which impairs intellectual development in young children, thus lowering national IQs: vitamin A deficiency, which compromises the immune system of approximately 40 per cent of children under five in developing countries and leads to the deaths of 1 million each year; and iodine deficiency in pregnancy, which causes mental impairment in as many as 20 million babies each year.

"It is no longer a question of treating severe deficiency in individuals. It is a question of reaching out to whole populations to protect them against the devastating consequences of even moderate forms of vitamin and mineral deficiency", according to Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF. She also said that methods such as food fortification and supplementation, which have worked in industrialized nations, are now available and so inexpensive that they could control vitamin and mineral deficiencies worldwide.

The report also calls for the food industry to develop, market and distribute low-cost fortified food products and supplements, and for Governments to create a supportive legislative environment and standards, enabling for the control of these deficiencies through public education and legislation. Also essential is controlling diseases, including malaria, measles, diarrhoea and parasitic infections, which inhibit the absorption and utilization of essential vitamins and minerals.

The report concludes that unless action against vitamin and mineral deficiencies moves to a new level, children in the developing world will remain at risk of never reaching their full potential, and the United Nations will not achieve its goals of eradicating extreme poverty, improving maternal health and reducing child mortality by two thirds by 2015.