Busia County launches a Nutrition portal, a website that will act as a centre of nutrition information.
County Nutrition Coordinator, Vincent Kwena, highlighted the importance of nutritional value at all sectors and stages of life from maternal, infant, young nutrition, education, food security, and health at large.
“Despite progress, malnutrition in Busia remains a severe public health problem. However, the County government has demonstrated political commitment for preventing malnutrition by investing in the scale-up of nutrition interventions,’’ said Kwena.
“With the support of Nutrition International, the County leadership and policymakers developed the Busia County Nutrition Action Plan (CNAP) 2019-2023, which sets ambitious targets for the scale-up of nutrition interventions over a five-year period,” he said.
The County Nutritional Portal is to provide a progressive, sustainable, technologically driven, evidence-based and client-centred nutrition system with the highest attainable standards of health at all levels of care.
The objective of the CNAP is to contribute to the national agenda for Kenya National Action Plan(KNAP) in accelerating and scaling up efforts towards the elimination of malnutrition in Kenya in line with Kenya’s Vision 2030 and sustainable development goals, focusing on specific achievements by 2022.
The expected result or desired change for the CNAP is that ‘The entire population of Busia County achieve optimal nutrition for a healthier and better quality of life and improved productivity for the county’s accelerated social and economic growth
“The portal will be a centre of information for nutritional programmes, to give data on nutrition status in the county, track the nutritional programs, resource mobilisation and also be used as a tool of learning on nutritional related programs in the county,” said Kwena.
While nutrition and health indicators in Busia County are still alarming, the County has committed to improving these numbers.
Stunting prevalence is 22 per cent, 9 per cent of children are underweight and only 20 per cent access the minimum dietary requirements
“Malnutrition starts when most children clock six months, most mothers introduce babies to porridge as the only meal. They forget to incorporate variety of food items in their children diet hence malnutrition,” said Kwena
Good nutrition is key to child survival, growth, and development of children in Kenya. Poor nutrition in infancy and early childhood increases the risk of infant child morbidity and mortality, diminished cognitive and physical development marked by poor performance in school.
Malnutrition in children can be attributed to a variety of factors, including poor infant and young child feeding practices, poor maternal nutrition, low access to adequate and diversified diets, childhood illnesses and inadequate access to health and nutrition services.
The County Nutrition Action Plan (CNAP) was first launched in Busia County, and now the department has taken another step to launch the County Nutrition Portal website that unveils all information on nutrition. To access the portal, the public are encouraged to use click on the link https://busiacounty.go.ke/nutritionhealth/
By Absalom Namwalo
