15 May 2016

Malnutrition cases are on the rise in Kazungula with 38 cases currently on record. This came to light at a recent Malnutrition Prevention project handover by four Boitekanelo College students.

One of the students, Mr Tevin Theetso, said that they conducted a community needs assessment, which revealed that there were 38 cases of malnutrition in children below the age of five years.

“We found that this is due to neglect by parents in feeding their children, leaving their children to feed themselves unsupervised and in some cases poverty,” he said. He therefore urged district leadership to consider direct feeding.

Chobe District Council chairperson Mr Mwanota Kachana said that malnutrition was estimated to contribute to more than one third of all child deaths although it was rarely listed as the direct cause.

“Chobe district alone has a malnutrition prevalence of 4.7 per cent, with Kazungula village contributing 1.4 per cent of malnutrition cases,” he noted.

He added that more work needed to be done in mobilising and educating communities on the utilization of interventions such as food supplement and direct feeding.

“Therefore let us take advantage of this project handing over to mobilise the community for integrated actions to control malnutrition in our district,” he said.

Reflecting on the increasing malnutrition cases, the District Community Health Nurse Ms Itumeleng Kamwi felt that a lot of these cases were associated with teenage mothers who ended up neglecting their children.

She also confirmed that some mothers sold food supplement for money to buy alcohol, leaving their children malnourished.

“We have also observed that some parents stick to feeding their children three times a d