WFP HELPING TO OVERCOME MALNUTRITION PROBLEM IN NTB

Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), Aug. 12 (ANTARA) - The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) is committed to helping address malnutrition in NTB Province, a WFP spokesman said.

"The malnutrition problem is very complex and solving it is the government's responsibility. However, we are committed to helping the government deal with it," Seneviratne Somaratne, head of the WFP representative office in Mataram, said here recently.

WFP has been operating in NTB since 2005 to help Indonesia achieve the target of reducing the malnutrition rate significantly in 2010, Somaratne said.

According to data from the NTB health office, the number of under-five-year-old children suffering from malnutrition in the province had tended to increase since 2001.

In 2001, about 3.73 percent of the province's children suffered from malnutrition, and the percentage increased to 4.15 percent in 2002. It fell to 3.31 percent in 2003 but jumped again to 4.09 percent in 2004.

In 2005, the malnutrition rate rose sharply to 6.58 percent with a total of 3,950 cases. In 2008, there were 1,207 cases of malnutrition, including 23 of them were categorized as Marasmus Kwarshiorkor or starvation, and 45 of them were dead in the province.

This year, the province recorded 73 malnutrition cases involving 59 children.