Children anemia increases to 41 percent in Lima
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This was indicated by an advance of the Demographic and Family Health Survey (Endes), according to which anemia in children under three years old in Lima went from 33.2 percent in 2017, to 41 percent in the first semester of 2018.
In the country, the disease reaches 46.6 percent of that age range. In 2014 it was 46.8 at the national level and between 2015 and 2017 it dropped to 43.6, which means that the situation has worsened until it has fallen almost to the figures of four years ago.
The problem is much greater in the Andean and Amazonian regions, where it reaches averages of 54.2 and 48.8 percent, respectively, while on the coast it rose from 36.1 to 42 percent.
The situation is worst in regions such as the south Andean of Puno (75.9 percent), the Loreto Amazon (61.5) and Ucayali (59.1) and the Pasco Andean center (58).
The consumption of iron, a determining factor in the levels of anemia, is in Peru of only three milligrams per day, 10 milligrams per day being indicated.
Peru has a National Plan to combat anemia, in which the Ministries of Health, Education, Agriculture and Social Inclusion and regional governments participate.
The World Food Program of the United Nations promotes communication campaigns to change habits in the population and has suggested a law for the fortification of foodstuffs such as rice. ■