By Ajuma Edwina Ogiri
National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has again restated its avowed commitment to the fight against the incidence of “hidden hunger” in the country.
A statement by NAFDAC’s Director of Special Duties, Abubakar Jimoh, said the Agency’s Director-General, Dr. Paul Orhii, declared this in Abuja while receiving the I-Check equipment for testing of iodine in salt donated by Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Micronutrient Initiative (MI).
He said non-iodised salt constituted a serious health challenge on the mental development of children and other devastating consequences occasioned by iodine deficiency disorders.
It added that the Country Manager of GAIN, Dr. Larry Umunna, while making the donation with his counterpart at MI, Dr. Oladipo Rauf, lamented the decline in the consumption of adequately iodised salt at household levels from 98 per cent in 2005 to 52 per cent in 2008.
The statement said: “The goal of this project is to accelerate efforts towards the sustainable elimination of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD) as a public health problem through salt iodisation. We also want to increase the national coverage of households consuming adequately iodised salt to at least 85 per cent.”
It would be recalled that GAIN in 2012 made a similar donation of 12 units of I-Check kits to NAFDAC for testing of Vitamin A and Iron in flour, vegetable oil and sugar.