Although sri lanka achieved greater heights on several Health Indicators comaparing with most other countries Malnutrition amongst Children,Adolesents and pregnent mothers are in rise Nutritionists warned.Child Malnutrition is very high at the moment and due to this 16.7 percent out of the SrI Lanka's 300,000 newly born infants are reported as having low birth weight.The weight of these children are well below 2.5 KG which is the normal birth weight of the infants.
According to the National Nutrition Policy launched at the Sri Lanka Foundation Insttiute on Last Tuesday 16.2 percent of Sri Lankan women are malnourished and 30.3 percent of pregnent Mothers are suffering from Anemia which was caused due to the malnutrition.Around 29 percent of the Children under the 5 years of age are suffering from Vtamin A Deficiancy Nutritionist said.
The Malnutrition status among children are same as that in Thirty years ago according to them.The Poorest People which represents the 20 percent of the local population are restrict their meals especially nutritious meals due to the daily price hike of food items and getting used to consume non nutritious foods according the Nutritionists.
Fifteen Thousand Five Hundrad eighty eight (15,588) Dengue patients are reported throught the Island from January to June this year and out of them Ninty were died according to the Sri Lankan Epidemeology Unit.The Most number of Dengue Patients were reported from the Jaffna District which is Two thousand seventy three patients upto date.
