JOIN USCome Wednesday and 18 lakh children in Delhi government schools and outside will start receiving iron folic acid tablets every week to counter anaemia. Thirty-five lakh children in the capital will also be given de-worming tablets and syrups once a year.
Chief minister Sheila Dikshit, along with state health and family welfare minister Ashok Kumar Walia, on Monday launched the weekly iron folic acid supplementation and mass de-worming programme to counter the menace of anaemia.
The prevalence and severity of anaemia can be gauged from the data of Chacha Nehru Sehta Yojna — under which the two programmes are launched — which shows that 50 per cent adolescent girls and 18 per cent adolescent boys are affected by anaemia.
Overall, in 2012, a total of 34 per cent girls and 18 per cent boys were found to be suffering from it.
Iron deficiency is responsible for affecting physical growth, sexual development, menstruation, pregnancy, memory, attentiveness and immunity from infections.
All students between the class of six and 12 will receive the blue iron and folic acid tablets every Wednesday at the Delhi government, MCD, NDMC and Delhi Cantonment Board schools. Teachers have been encouraged to consume the pills themselves in front of the students in order to encourage them.
Dr N V Kamat, director at Directorate of Health Services, said even those adolescent girls between the age of 10 and 19 years, who are not registered at schools, will be provided the pills through anganwadi centres.
According to Dr J P Kapoor, additional director of school health services, tablets in sufficient quantity have been procured and have been tested by government approved laboratories.
“The reason behind choosing Wednesday as the weekly day for administering the tablets is that it is the only day when fasts are not scheduled. Since this is not just a health development issue, but also a survival issue, we had to plan it such that most number of students benefit from it,” he said.
Dikshit described it as an important day for the capital in terms of health. “We were the first state to eradicate polio two years ago and now we intend to eradicate anaemia with the same intensity,” she said.
Other states too are following close on the heels of Delhi with the programme’s implementation scheduled in Karnataka for July 17 and in Rajasthan later this month.