GHS worried about nutritional status of children

The Deputy Director of Nutrition of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Mrs Esi Oforiwa Amoaful, says the number of children who are fed with nutritionally adequate diet after six months is very low in the country.

She has consequently lauded the partnership between the GHS and Koko Plus towards improving nutrition among children under two in the country.

Koko Plus is a food supplement produced by Koko Plus Foundation, a Ghana-based Japanese company, to improve nutrition among children, particularly children under two years, and to reduce stunting growth among Ghanaian children.

Mrs Amoaful said the partnership “is bringing to the fore opportunities to improve the skills and competencies of service providers”.

She added that “this is key in ensuring that the interactions between caregivers and health providers would be of good quality”.

Review meeting

Mrs Amoaful said this at the annual performance review meeting of the Nutrition Unit of the Ashanti Regional Health Directorate.

“It is the ability to support caregivers of children especially and also other members of the family that will address factors that affect or determine whether a woman will do exclusive breastfeeding for six months or otherwise, she said.

“I think that the partnership with Koko Plus is improving that, and we look forward to the sustained implementation of this initiative,” she added.

Mrs Amoaful said there were so many baby foods on the market that lacked nutritional values but were being fed to the children.

“There are so many food items that are not nutritionally sound such as coloured sugary solutions, high fat foods that are on the market and are being fed to growing children,” she said.

Expansion

The Programme Coordinator of Koko Plus Foundation, Ms Ophelia Osei Konadu, said the feedback from the caregivers and health professionals the foundation had worked with over the years would provide some help in the quest by the foundation to expand its programme to ensure that every child was fed with the food supplement.

“The feedback we are getting has been tremendous, and we hope that based on the good feedback we are getting from our caregivers and health professionals, we can expand rapidly so that every child gets access to the product,” she said.