WHO develops new growth standards for children in Africa

Accra, May 29, GNA - Policy makers and health officials from 16 African countries are meeting in Accra to adopt and implement a World Health Organisation (WHO) new Growth Standards for African countries. The standards when adopted would help describe how children grow when provided with adequate food, care and essential health services. It will also provide technical knowledge upon which growth monitoring and promotion can be based, Mr Samuel Owusu-Agyei, Deputy Minister of Health, told the opening session of a day's international workshop on the implementation of the new standards.

He said when adopted it would serve as a more adequate tool to monitor and evaluate the nutritional status of infants and young children in order to take appropriate measures whenever the need arose. "The adoption of the new standards would be an opportunity to invigorate nutrition activities within the context of primary health care services to identify children at risk and take action to prevent or treat malnutrition".

He explained that nutrition was linked to the Millennium Development Goals the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy and that government was putting in efforts to address the nutritional problems in the country at both household and community levels. Dr Joaquim Saweke, WHO Representative in Ghana, said the growth references were valuable tools to measure how society fulfilled children's basic physical needs since it would help in tracking progress in health outcomes and how to translate them into medium term and long term social and economic development.

He said the adoption of the new standards would not only have implications on monitoring and promotion of optimal growth of present children but future generations as well.