Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the\u00a0Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Thursday said anaemia in pregnancy remains a major challenge impeding the Service\u2019s effort\u00a0in reducing maternal mortality in the country.<\/p>\n
He said the\u00a02014 Ghana Demographic Health Survey (GDHS) showed that, the\u00a0prevalence of anaemia among women of child-bearing\u00a0age (15-49 years)\u00a0stood at 42 per cent.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”5sDQxQ1pxkVWxAAYlIZZhcjYBiYCOaXb”]The rates were highest among the adolescents age group (15-19 years) at 48 per cent and 45 percent among pregnant women.<\/p>\n
Dr. Nsiah-Asare made this known at the national launch of\u00a0Girls Iron and Folic Acid Tablets Supplementation (GIFTS) Programme on Wednesday in Sunyani.<\/p>\n
The key objective of the programme is to contribute to\u00a0the reduction\u00a0of anaemia in-school and out- of school adolescent girls through weekly Iron Folic Acid Supplementation.<\/p>\n
The first phase of the programme in four regions would \u00a0serve about 360,000\u00a0 in-school children, and close to 600,000 out of school children to improve the quality of nutrition for girls and women to reduce the prevailing anaemia rate in the country.<\/p>\n
The programme initiated by\u00a0the GHS and the Ghana Education Service (GES), with support from the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF), is being implemented in the Brong-Ahafo, Volta, Northern and Upper East Regions.<\/p>\n
He stated that anaemia affected seven out of ten children below five years and four, out of 10 women of child-bearing age, and added that the high prevalence of anaemia in young children seemed to persist even as they grew older into adolescence.<\/p>\n
Dr. Nsiah-Asare said the programme\u00a0was expected to revamp the existing\u00a0iron and\u00a0folic acid\u00a0supplementation programme\u00a0that targeted pregnant women, but the target was not being achieved because of misconceptions and other operational reasons.<\/p>\n
He expressed worry that Ghana was now\u00a0battling with \u201cthe triple burden of malnutrition\u201d – high prevalence of under-nutrition, micro-nutrient deficiencies of various forms, and an alarming increase in the trends of overweight and obesity particularly in urban areas.<\/p>\n
Dr. Nsiah-Asare stressed the need to address it [anaemia]\u00a0to curtail the far-reaching irreversible adverse effect on physical and cognitive effects on the population, and urged the general public to take oranges regularly\u00a0and other fruits rich in Vitamin C that helped the body to use the iron for making blood.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: GNA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the\u00a0Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Thursday said anaemia in pregnancy remains a major challenge impeding the Service\u2019s effort\u00a0in reducing maternal mortality in the country. He said the\u00a02014 Ghana Demographic Health Survey (GDHS) showed that, the\u00a0prevalence of anaemia among women of child-bearing\u00a0age (15-49 years)\u00a0stood at 42 per cent. [contextly_sidebar id=”5sDQxQ1pxkVWxAAYlIZZhcjYBiYCOaXb”]The rates […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[360,3,958],"yoast_head":"\n