News: The Jharkhand government has launched the SAAMAR campaign to tackle malnutrition in the state.
About SAAMAR Campaign: SAAMAR is an acronym for Strategic Action for Alleviation of Malnutrition and Anaemia Reduction.
Aim: The SAAMAR campaign aims to identify anaemic women and malnourished children. Further, the campaign brings together various departments to effectively deal with the major malnutrition problem in the state.
Features of the campaign:
- SAAMAR campaign has been launched with a 1000 days target. Under this, annual surveys will be conducted to track the progress.
- Every Anganwadi Centres will be engaged to identify malnourished children. Subsequently, they will be treated at the Malnutrition Treatment Centres.
- Similarly, anemic women will also be identified and will be referred to health centers in serious cases.
Need to launch the campaign:
- According to NFHS-4 data, Jharkhand has some worrying level of malnutrition. The NFHS-4 data reveals the following trends.
- Every second child in the state is stunted and underweight
- Every third child is affected by stunting
- Every 10th child is affected by severe wasting
- Apart from that, around 70% of children are anaemic in the state.
- Hence, the intervention was required with a ‘different approach to reduce malnutrition.
