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Itamin & Ineral Deficiency: A Devastating Force Threatens The Lives of Billions
Itamin & Ineral Deficiency: A Devastating Force Threatens The Lives of Billions
MINERAL
DEFICIENCY
A devastating force threatens the lives of billions
• Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency prevents more
than two billion people from achieving their full
intellectual and physical potential
• It imposes a heavy toll on national economies
and on health care systems
• It condemns billions of people to lives lived
in poverty
A bigger problem,
a greater challenge
Every Year:
• Iodine deficiency causes 18 million babies to be
born with mental impairment
• Iron deficiency causes the unnecessary deaths of
60,000 women
• Folate deficiency causes approximately
200,000 preventable birth defects
• Nations unnecessarily lose more than 2% of their
gross national products
In “COUNTRY NAME”:
• Fortification
• Supplementation
• Education
• Disease control
• Fortification
– Adding essential vitamins and minerals to foods
that are regularly consumed by a significant
proportion of the population (such as flour, salt,
sugar, oil and margarine)
– The cost can be as low as a few cents per person
per year
Solutions
• Supplementation
– Reaching out to vulnerable groups (particularly
children and women of childbearing age) with
vitamin and mineral supplements in the form of
tablets, capsules and syrups
– The cost can be as low as a few cents per person
per year
Solutions
• Disease control
– Controlling diseases like malaria, measles, diarrhea,
and parasitic infections can also help the body to
absorb and retain essential vitamins and minerals
A decade of progress
• Governments can:
– Help build public demand for fortified foods through
health and education services
– Assist with start-up financing and product
development
– Endorse approved food products
– Allow distribution of certain fortified foods through
schools, hospitals and clinics
– Reduce duties on imported vitamins and minerals
or on essential machinery used for fortification
– Legislate in support of food fortification
Controlling vitamin and mineral
deficiency is an affordable opportunity
to improve the lives of two billion
people and strengthen the pulse of
economic development.