Considering the high levels of both Infant Mortality Rate [IMR] and Maternal Mortality Rate [MMR] in the country, with deficiencies in micronutrients identified as a major contributory factor, the intervention role of the Standard Organisation of Nigeria [SON] in the enforcement of food fortification could not have come at a better time.
According to a recent UNICEF report, every single day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 under five year olds. Nearly 10 per cent of new born deaths in the world in 2016 occurred in Nigeria. Meanwhile, MMR in Nigeria is as high as 821 per 100,000 live births. Most of the maternal deaths were linked to Anaemia which is caused by serious iron deficiency.
In an ideal world we would all have access to a wide variety of fortified foods which provide all the vitamins and minerals we need. Unfortunately with many people, this is often food fortification matters.
Today, two billion people survive on diets that lack the vital vitamins and nutrients needed to grow properly, live healthy lives, and raise a healthy family.
Pregnant women, babies and young children are particularly vulnerable. Malnutrition is the largest single contributor to disease in the world. It is a sad fact that 45% of all child deaths have malnutrition as the underlying cause. Fortification, which is the addition of essential nutrients to staple foods and condiments such as flour, sugar, pasta, oil and salt, helps people to avoid deficiencies in vitamins and minerals. We can make a big impact on disease through food fortification
Just last week, SON commenced an aggressive nationwide evacuation of unfortified food products in the country. The Director General, Osita Aboloma, on Monday, said that the exercise was in line with both the present administration and international organisation’s food fortification programme aimed at ensuring that Nigerian children and women have access to basic nutrients and vitamins for health and development.
The SON enforcement team for Alabarago markets and its environs in Lagos, led by Bede Obayi, recently seized loads of unfortified bagged granulated sugar from the various markets.
Speaking during the exercise, Aboloma, who was represented by Obayi, disclosed that the exercise was conducted simultaneously in the 36 states of the federation including Abuja, the federal capital.
“We have decided to go all out to ensure that the standards for flour, pasta, sugar and salt (food fortified products) meet the minimum requirement of the standards. After being consumed by Nigerians, we must get the quality nutrients we deserve.
Salt must be fortified with iodine while flour, pasta, sugar, vegetable oil, whole grains, milled rice, cereals must be enriched with vitamins and minerals such as Vitamins A and D, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, calcium. Dried skim milk powder and non fat dry milk must also be fortified with vitamins A and D.
“Children and women suffer malnutrition when these food items are not certified. Lack of fortification of food also leads to stunted growth and child mortality and this is why these fortified foods have been supported by the international agencies as partners to ensure that Nigerian children and women grow like other children and women in other parts of the world,” explained Obayi.
Clarifying, he noted: “These food vehicles have been carefully selected because they are food items consumed by every Nigerian. The unfortified food products are smuggled into the Nigerian markets, and this is why our Inspectorate and Compliance department is all out to ensure that wherever these products are being smuggled into in the country, we do the needful.
“We are conducting massive evacuation so that they do not find their way into the Nigerian market. We are targeting all the entry points. We have our comb on all major markets to ensure that Nigerians are protected from these unfortified foods,” the SON DG said.
The DG stated further that failing to address malnutrition would continue to negatively impact, not only on the health and wellbeing of Nigerians, but also on the country’s economic growth and prosperity.
It would also be recalled that the Director, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation- Shawn Baker- and Nigerian food processing and nutrition leaders convened for the first time recently to pledge a collective action to achieve adequate fortification of Nigeria’s major food staples by 2020.
Meanwhile, SON and other government representatives have declared their commitment to improving the regulatory environment around food fortification, pledging to review potential impediments to greater fortification and increase enforcement and incentive mechanisms.
Aboloma disclosed that SON is currently working with the National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Consumer Protection Council (CPC) and international partners to ensure that the fortification programme of the present administration is a success.
“We have confirmed that there are unfortified food items in the market and our mandate is to remove them from circulation because we have agreed that those products should not be in our market because it is a great concern to us as a standards body.”
He, however, advised Nigerians to always look out for the quality symbols before purchasing these food items for consumption, saying that the fight against substandard goods in the country is a collective effort.
Speaking with The Nation newspapers, the National Publicity Secretary, Nutrition Society of Nigeria, Olusola Abimbola Malomo, commended SON, stressing that there was need for massive consumer education on how to identify unfortified food products and steer clear of them.
There are four major diseases which can be reduced by consumers consuming micronutrients and food products that have been fortified.
Goitre
A goitre is an inflammation in the thyroid gland. Goitres are usually a result of iodine deficiency, one of the world’s most prevalent, yet easily preventable causes of brain damage. Iodine helps us stay warm, keeping the brain, heart, muscles, and other organs working as they should.
Adding iodine to salt can fight goitre and other iodine deficiencies, and is the simplest, safest and most inexpensive intervention to ensure an adequate iodine intake.
Night blindness
Vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of preventable blindness in children, affecting 100-140 million children around the world. An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 vitamin A deficient children become blind every year.
Rickets
Rickets affects bone development, causing the bones to become soft and weak. The most common cause is a lack of vitamin D and calcium, and a deficiency in either can be particularly dangerous to babies and children.
Anaemia
Anaemia is a serious iron deficiency, which can result in delayed development in children and affect the mental functioning of teens. Anaemia is also the leading cause of maternal death.
Iron and Vitamin B12 are essential minerals that fight exhaustion and anaemia by carrying oxygen through the lungs and around the body to maintain a healthy nervous system.
