Islamabad, Jan 11 (ANI): A National Nutritional Survey (NNS) 2011 has found that about 58 percent of Pakistanis are food insecure.
This situation has deteriorated from the previous nutritional survey published in 2003 which marked food insecure Pakistanis at 50 percent.
"Nutrition is not only a health issue but a socio-economic one as well," The Express Tribune quoted Dr Muhammad Dauod Altaf, the provincial head for the World Health Organisation emergency assistance programme, as saying.
Altaf was speaking at a seminar organised to launch the survey on Tuesday.
"There are many underlying factors which are crippling Pakistani society as a whole. But the job is not for the health department alone. The departments of agriculture and education also need to work together so the issue of nutrition can be addressed," he added.
The problem is not that Pakistan doesn't have food to feed its people but that people do not have purchasing power with the rise in food and other prices, Jamal explained.
The chief of the Nutrition Programme at the Unicef headquarters in New York, Dr Werner Schultink also spoke on the issue.
"According to survey data in 2001, Pakistan was among the top 20 countries with chronic under nutrition. In the last 10 years many, including Ethiopia, Nepal and Rwanda, have improved their situation but Pakistan stays about the same...with a slight tendency of going upward. That is worrying," he added.
Although Schultink said many people have been identified with acute malnutrition, he insisted that there was some good news as well.
"The good news is acute malnutrition is treatable and Pakistan's capacity in this area has sky rocketed," he added. (ANI)
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