Food for thought

India is an economic tiger and words like hunger and poverty are unfashionable. But the ground reality is a strange phenomenon. Economic growth alone has not been enough to reduce child malnourishment in India. This paradox is being termed "the south asian enigma". An erudite study published in the Economic and Political Weekly of India needs our attention. In the study the author has tried to compare percentage of malnourished children below 3 years relative to the national mean in the different states of India. He has then tracked this data in three time periods 1992-93, 1998-99 and 2005-6. The results are amazing. The economic giants of India–Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and Maharashtra do not figure in the top 5 states with relation to under 3 nutrition. Even emerging economic powers like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are not in the roll of honours. Except for the famous outlier- Kerala, the states which are best in terms of nutrition are the north eastern states like Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram. Bihar consistently remains the worst state in relation to child malnutrition and Madhya Pradesh has actually worsened over time. The largest relative deterioration has taken place in Rajasthan. Attempts to understand causes have also been addressed in the study. What is becoming clear, is that it is the general health and empowerment of the woman, and not just antenatal care, which is strongly linked to the state of nutrition of children. The exposure of women to media seems to move in the same direction as reduction in child malnutrition. Hence the information revolution may write a new success story in health and nutrition. (Economic and Political Weekly, 15 September 2007)

A new dress code "bare below the elbows" is being introduced in all hospitals in UK starting January 2008. The traditional long white coats of doctors will be banned. Staff will also have to eschew ties, jewellery, watches and all para-phernalia which may harbour microbes. The new rules come in the wake of a report which says that British hospitals are one of the worst in regards multi-drug resistant organisms and lag behind other European countries like Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic.

The Health Secretary, Alan Johnson is considering new strategies to help UK reach it's plan of reducing MRSA incidence by half by 2008. Hospitals will have new guidelines to tackle patients with MRSA or C. difficile. This may mean more isolation or cohort nursing where all patients with the same organism are nursed together. An editorial in the Lancet in August 2007, lambasted hospital mangers for failing to train staff in antibacterial prescribing, hand washing protocols and isolation facilities. Pressure from patient groups to reduce hospital acquired infections is slowly showing effect. (Telegraph.co.uk, 18 September 2007)

Gouri Rao Passi,
Consultant,
Department of Pediatrics,
Choithram Hospital & Research Center,
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India.
E-mail: [email protected]