Daily Times

THARPARKAR – A newborn died at the Civil Hospital Mithi on Thursday bringing the death toll of malnutrition children in Tharparkar and other areas to 312 in the last the four months.

According to sources, the newborn was on ventilator in Civil Hospital Mithi, where he died during treatment. Currently, over 40 malnutrition children are being provided medical treatment at the Civil Hospital Mithi, the hospital sources said.

The National Nutrition Survey reveals more than 70 per cent population in Sindh are facing food insecurity with Thar at the highest ratio because people of this region are poor and constantly migrate to other areas in search of food, water and fodder.

Availability of safe water for them has always been a distant dream. Some 89 per cent of underground water is brackish – unfit both for human and animals. The situation leaves the residents to use judiciously stored water instead of drying up their resources for hungry masses.

The World Food Programme has placed Tharparkar as the most insecure district where livelihood of people depend on rain-fed agriculture and livestock rearing while water remains the fundamental factor in food production.

A social activist Nawaz Nizamani says climatic changes which will create more food insecurity and calls for taking immediate steps to ward it off. “Rising temperatures are increasing the evaporation rate on land and sea which will speed-up hydrological cycle of the planet resulting in increased rainfall in tropics and higher latitudes, but decreased rains in dry and semi-arid zones and in the interior of large continents.

This in turn will lead to droughts and frequent flooding, and zones already suffering from water shortage will become dryer and hotter. Some 36 per cent children below five are suffering from severe malnutrition, 29 per cent from malnutrition only and mere 15 per cent found normal in seven union councils of Umerkot, says Bansi Malhi of an NGO, Hands.

Deficiency in balanced diet and inability of malnourished mothers to breast-feed infants are reasons of undernourishment among infants and toddlers, he says. Another impediment is the unavailability of safe drinking water and failure to chlorinate water resources such as ponds and canals which normally supply water laced with cow dung and pesticides.

One can’t expect healthy residents when water is not pure because it is bound to create anaemic conditions among consumers, he argues. The most vulnerable are pregnant women because malnourishment is feared to increase mother/child mortality rate.