Seminar: Creating awareness about IDD

PESHAWAR: Iodine Deficiency Disorder (IDD) causes pregnancy-related problems in women and results in thyroid deficiency and impaired mental functioning. There is a need to create awareness about IDD so that these preventable disorders can be controlled. This was discussed by speakers at a seminar held here at the Institute of Child Health on Wednesday. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Directorate of Health Services Provincial Nutrition Coordinator Syed Saeed Qadir said that 22.9 per cent of school-going children and 36.5 per cent mothers in the province are iodine deficient. He said that though the governments of K-P and Balochistan have passed the law for Universal Salt Iodization, due to absence of a law to at the federal level salt processing units ignore to include iodine in household salt. He added that as iodine is washed away from vegetables due to rains, supplementing it in food through iodised salts and it is the only way to meet the deficiency.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2012.