Amid the excitement of having won for the eighth consecutive year as the best culinary destination, Peru continues to maintain a very high rate of anemia in its children. In 2018 alone, 43.5% of children under 3 have suffered from anemia, according to the Ministry of Health, and the figure has not decreased in the last four years. Without detracting from the awards, the divisions in the budget have failed to improve the levels of anemia in the country.
“Unfortunately, in these four years, we have not decreased anemia. We mainly measure anemia in children between 6 and 35 months, who are the most vulnerable because their brain is growing and developing”, said Gustavo Rosell, Deputy Minister of Public Health of the Ministry of Health for a national media.
However, there have been variations in terms of percentages by region. While there have been declines in some provinces, some others have not varied and may even have registered an increase. Among them, Puno is with the highest level of anemia reaching 67% of children who suffer from it. Some other cases such as Cajamarca leave perplexed due to the variations since the northern department has registered the lowest rate of anemia although it does have a greater number of children with chronic malnutrition.
Meanwhile, the vice president of MINSA has indicated that they hope to reverse this situation. «These children are being thoroughly monitored through health personnel and community agents,» he said. Despite having allocated S / 50 million to 865 districts to address this emergency, the MEF has decided to allocate S / 80 million to the MINCETUR for the promotion of tourism and, among them, the advertising of our gastronomy in May of this year.
“We hope to reduce between four or five percentage points, which would mean 50 thousand fewer children with anemia. It is an ambitious goal to reach 2021”, added the MINSA representative.