Over 50% of Ghanaians Risk Mental Retardation

A total of 51 percent of Ghanaian households risk many health problems, prominent among them being mental retardation. This is because they are consuming salt which is either inadequately iodized or not iodized at all, experts have revealed.

According to statistics made available by officials from Food and Drugs Board and corroborated by a nutritionist from the Ghana Health Service (GHS), as at the end of 2005, only 49 per cent of Ghanaian households consumed adequately iodized salt.

These disturbing revelations came to light at a seminar on the Food and Drugs Board (Amendment) Bill organized by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), a human rights organization, in Accra last week. The seminar created a forum for civil society to deliberate on the bill and to advocate the inclusion into it, provisions for iodization of other food products in Ghana in addition to salt.

The current law on iodization in Ghana, the LRC observes, limits the requirement of iodization only to salt and this coupled, with other factors, account for the high iodine deficiency rate in the country. The LRC believes that if the law extends the scope of iodization to cover other products such as oil as it pertains in other jurisdictions, it will go a long way to reduce the current rate of iodine deficiency.

The Foods and Drugs (Amendment) Bill, which is currently before Parliament, seeks to empower the Foods and Drugs Board to charge and retain fees in the discharge of its functions for the purposes of defraying its operational expenses and other related matters.

The LRC considers the time opportune for iodization of other foods products, besides salt, to be included in the Bill.

In a presentation, Mr. Ireneous Soyiri, a lecturer at the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, explained iodine as "a mineral element needed for thyroid hormones production." He said about a pinhead of iodine is required in a lifetime. Other ways in which Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD) manifest themselves include severe and irresistible brain damage in foetus, cretinism, frequent miscarriages, still-births, low-birth weight, and high infant mortality, low intelligence quotient, sleeplessness, poor eye and hand co-ordination, dumbness, muteness, goitre, lack of energy, and dryness of skin, he further revealed.

Mr. Soyiri attributed the low consumption of iodized salt in Ghana to the relatively cheaper price of uniodized salt which sells between two to ten times lower in some rural areas; the sale of uniodized salt alongside iodized salt, and the fact that salt mined in Ghana may not meet the specification for iodization.

He said there are alternative dietary iodine sources to iodized salt and these are sea fish, which contains 10 to 100 times more iodine than fresh-water fish and seaweeds.

"A country is NOT on its way to eliminating IDD UNTIL greater than, or equal to, ninety per cent of her household are using iodized salt," he stated.

In another presentation, Dr. W. B. Owusu, a lecturer at the Department of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Ghana, noted that, the production of iodized salt is limited by high production cost and small size of market.

He observes that, to whip the appetite of Ghanaians for the consumption of iodized salt, it is imperative to study the knowledge, attitude and practices of the target groups so as to factor them into educational programmes.

It came to light during discussions that the duplication of functions between the Food and Drugs Board and Ghana Standards Board poses a problem to the attainment of the goal of ensuring that a sizeable number of Ghanaians consume iodized salt.

It was stressed that Food and Drugs Board should restrict itself to regulations regarding foods, drugs, chemicals and other pertinent products while Ghana Standards Board confine itself to assessment of standards of products as required by law.