Jharkhand Launched ‘SAAMAR Campaign’ to Fight Malnutrition

Jharkhand launched ‘SAAMAR campaign’ to fight malnutrition

The Jharkhand government recently announced the launch of SAAMAR campaign to tackle malnutrition in the state. The campaign aims to identify anemic women and malnourished children and converge various departments to effectively deal with the problem in a state where malnutrition has been a major problem.

What is SAAMAR?

SAAMAR (Strategic Action for Alleviation of Malnutrition and Anemia Reduction) campaign has been launched with a 1000 days target, where annual surveys will be conducted to track the progress. The campaign will bring together various departments to identify anaemic women and malnourished children to effectively deal with the problem in a state where malnutrition has been a major problem.

Significance of SAMAAR campaign

SAAMAR has been launched with a 1000 days target, under which annual surveys will be conducted to track the progress.

It talks of convergence of various departments such as Rural Development Department and Food and Civil Supplies and engagement with school management committees, gram sabhas among others and making them aware of nutritional behaviour.

Most importantly, the campaign, as per the note, also tries to target Primarily Vulnerable Tribal Groups. Stating that there is no research based information available on their food and nutritional habits, it encourages research and proposes fellowships on nutritional behavior of these groups for effective implementation.

According to NFHS-4 data, Jharkhand has some worrying level of malnutrition. The NFHS-4 data reveals the following trends.

• Every second child in the state is stunted and underweight
• Every third child is affected by stunting
• Every 10th child is affected by severe wasting
• Apart from that, around 70% of children are anaemic in the state.

Malnutrition in children and anemic women

• Every Anganwadi Centres will be engaged to identify these children and subsequently will be treated at the Malnutrition Treatment Centres to tackle severe acute malnutrition children. In the same process the anemic women will also be listed and will be referred to health centers in serious cases.
• All of these will be done through measuring Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) of women and children through MUAC tapes and Edema levels, swelling in a small area or the entire body—malnutrition is one of the reasons attributed to this disease.
• Angawadi’s Sahayia and Sevika will take them to the nearest Health Centre where they will be checked again and then registered on the portal of State Nutrition Mission.