- Email: [email protected]
Malnutrition snapshots
Perspectives
be eradicated and south Sudan will be where the last case will be found. As Donald Hopkins of the Carter Center so cogently says in this film “Security will be the greater obstacle” to success in south Sudan, not the absence of any sophisticated technology but our ability to apply what has worked throughout Asia and elsewhere in Africa. Foul Water Fiery Serpent shows just what high level advocacy at international and at national levels can achieve when the strategy is simple, the goal realistic, and the country commitment sustained. The drive to increase the profile of NTD control, elimination, or eradication has become a mission for a committed group of advocates from
many sectors. The scientific investment and development case has been made. The translation into public health reality and success is a prerequisite for the health of the poorest and an entry point for other health interventions for the neediest in areas unserved by even rudimentary services. The World Bank has estimated that the economic rate of return on the investment in Guinea worm eradication is of the order of 29% per year once the disease is eradicated comparable with other neglected diseases. Those interested in this area should also take time to view the Rockhopper TV productions on tropical diseases. Much material is out there and should
be compulsory viewing for policy makers who cling to the belief that only three diseases matter—malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS—and that polio is the only disease which has an eradication programme. The race to eradicate another disease 30 years after smallpox was declared eradicated by WHO is on. Guinea worm must be the odds on favourite to be the next candidate—removing true “alien monsters” from planet earth. DM is a Member of the WHO International Commission for the Certification of Dracunculiasis Eradication and of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication based at the Carter Center.
David Molyneux [email protected]
In brief Film Malnutrition snapshots Hungry African infants are, quite literally, the poster children for poverty. Images of gaunt young faces with jarringly pot-bellied bodies haunt anyone who has enough to eat each day. But severe hunger is just one extreme end of the nutritional problems that disadvantaged people around the world face. Malnutrition is much more insidious. This series of short films by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the VII Photo Agency documents this hidden emergency with snapshots from around the world. While these
Starved For Attention Médecins Sans Frontières and the VII Photo Agency, 2010. Watch the films at http://www. starvedforattention.org
Ron Haviv/VII
See Online for webvideo
948
masterpieces of photojournalism share a reportage style that binds them together, the films have distinct personalities. They are imbued with the sensibilities of the photographer— Ron Haviv, for instance, uses splashes of colour to draw the eye to his point of focus. What the series tells us is that the causes of malnutrition are highly varied. In Burkina Faso, for instance, malnutrition is seasonal. Every time crops fail, thousands who rely on subsistence farming are plunged into malnutrition. Mothers go for days without food to make sure their children have enough to eat. In the conflict-ridden Congo, Franco Pagetti reveals a situation that is even more heartbreaking. Malnourished children die right in the middle of lush, fertile land. But when life is lived constantly on the run, the only food most refugees dare grow is cassava—the carbohydrate-rich root that is the nutritional equivalent of cardboard so deficient is it in proteins or vitamins. But it’s Haviv’s portrayal of Bangladesh that hammers home how treacherously deceptive malnutrition
can be. In Haviv’s film, the children don’t look sick, yet UNICEF estimates that about half of all children who live in Bangladesh younger than 5 years are malnourished. Tackling malnutrition would have far-reaching benefits, especially when it comes to a topic that global leaders are paying much lip-service to—maternal and child health. Malnourished mothers are more likely to give birth to underweight babies, who will then be far more vulnerable to illness. The causes of malnutrition are complex and hard to fix. But MSF has set its sights on one issue that would make a difference—better food aid. Food aid reaches many hungry people, but MSF maintains that the current standard of such aid is pitiful. Fortified flour and similar food parachuted in to fill hungry bellies provides energy, but not enough nutrients to stave off malnutrition. This is the point that these films make: these children deserve to live and to thrive, not just survive.
Priya Shetty [email protected]
www.thelancet.com Vol 376 September 18, 2010
be eradicated and south Sudan will be where the last case will be found. As Donald Hopkins of the Carter Center so cogently says in this film “Security will be the greater obstacle” to success in south Sudan, not the absence of any sophisticated technology but our ability to apply what has worked throughout Asia and elsewhere in Africa. Foul Water Fiery Serpent shows just what high level advocacy at international and at national levels can achieve when the strategy is simple, the goal realistic, and the country commitment sustained. The drive to increase the profile of NTD control, elimination, or eradication has become a mission for a committed group of advocates from
many sectors. The scientific investment and development case has been made. The translation into public health reality and success is a prerequisite for the health of the poorest and an entry point for other health interventions for the neediest in areas unserved by even rudimentary services. The World Bank has estimated that the economic rate of return on the investment in Guinea worm eradication is of the order of 29% per year once the disease is eradicated comparable with other neglected diseases. Those interested in this area should also take time to view the Rockhopper TV productions on tropical diseases. Much material is out there and should
be compulsory viewing for policy makers who cling to the belief that only three diseases matter—malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS—and that polio is the only disease which has an eradication programme. The race to eradicate another disease 30 years after smallpox was declared eradicated by WHO is on. Guinea worm must be the odds on favourite to be the next candidate—removing true “alien monsters” from planet earth. DM is a Member of the WHO International Commission for the Certification of Dracunculiasis Eradication and of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication based at the Carter Center.
David Molyneux [email protected]
In brief Film Malnutrition snapshots Hungry African infants are, quite literally, the poster children for poverty. Images of gaunt young faces with jarringly pot-bellied bodies haunt anyone who has enough to eat each day. But severe hunger is just one extreme end of the nutritional problems that disadvantaged people around the world face. Malnutrition is much more insidious. This series of short films by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the VII Photo Agency documents this hidden emergency with snapshots from around the world. While these
Starved For Attention Médecins Sans Frontières and the VII Photo Agency, 2010. Watch the films at http://www. starvedforattention.org
Ron Haviv/VII
See Online for webvideo
948
masterpieces of photojournalism share a reportage style that binds them together, the films have distinct personalities. They are imbued with the sensibilities of the photographer— Ron Haviv, for instance, uses splashes of colour to draw the eye to his point of focus. What the series tells us is that the causes of malnutrition are highly varied. In Burkina Faso, for instance, malnutrition is seasonal. Every time crops fail, thousands who rely on subsistence farming are plunged into malnutrition. Mothers go for days without food to make sure their children have enough to eat. In the conflict-ridden Congo, Franco Pagetti reveals a situation that is even more heartbreaking. Malnourished children die right in the middle of lush, fertile land. But when life is lived constantly on the run, the only food most refugees dare grow is cassava—the carbohydrate-rich root that is the nutritional equivalent of cardboard so deficient is it in proteins or vitamins. But it’s Haviv’s portrayal of Bangladesh that hammers home how treacherously deceptive malnutrition
can be. In Haviv’s film, the children don’t look sick, yet UNICEF estimates that about half of all children who live in Bangladesh younger than 5 years are malnourished. Tackling malnutrition would have far-reaching benefits, especially when it comes to a topic that global leaders are paying much lip-service to—maternal and child health. Malnourished mothers are more likely to give birth to underweight babies, who will then be far more vulnerable to illness. The causes of malnutrition are complex and hard to fix. But MSF has set its sights on one issue that would make a difference—better food aid. Food aid reaches many hungry people, but MSF maintains that the current standard of such aid is pitiful. Fortified flour and similar food parachuted in to fill hungry bellies provides energy, but not enough nutrients to stave off malnutrition. This is the point that these films make: these children deserve to live and to thrive, not just survive.
Priya Shetty [email protected]
www.thelancet.com Vol 376 September 18, 2010