NAIROBI, April 17 (Xinhua) -- A World Health Organization (WHO) adviser on Tuesday urged Kenya to confront all types of malnutrition in order to achieve universal health care the government promised last year.
Adelheid Onyango, nutritional adviser to the WHO Regional Office for Africa, told journalists in Nairobi that poverty, hunger and disease are the main drivers of malnutrition in Kenya and are directly related to socio-economic factors.
"Nutrition is relevant to the quest for universal health coverage because it underpins resistance to infectious diseases and also reduces the risk of non-communicable diseases," Onyango said.
"Health is more than the absence of disease. As Kenya commits to achieving affordable, accessible and quality health care, the country should call attention to nutrition, which is one of the most neglected parts of the equation," she said.
Kenya's ambitious target of ending all forms of malnutrition by 2030 will prove a challenge because the double burden of malnutrition, under-nutrition coupled with obesity and the burden of diet-related non-communicable diseases, will lead to catastrophic costs to households, Onyango said.
Latest statistics from the ministry of health shows that malnutrition is the single greatest contributor to child mortality in Kenya, whereas an estimated 2.1 million children are stunted, a serious national development concern as these children will never reach their full physical and mental potential.
Onyango said Kenyan authorities ought to launch a campaign to arrest the rising cases of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases that are largely the result of lifestyles characterized by limited physical activities and consumption of unhealthy diets.
"Kenya, like other countries in Africa, experiences the double burden of malnutrition, or triple burden if micronutrient deviancies are considered, which are linked to poor living conditions, lack of education and empowerment, insecure livelihoods, lack of access to basic services including health care and good quality food," she said.
Gladys Mugambi, head of nutrition and dietetics at the Ministry of Health, said Kenya has fewer than 4,000 registered nutritionists, serving 50 million people against an anticipated minimum of 6,000, adding that the figure is way below the recommended one nutritionist for every 500 households.
"The situation is aggravated by the fact that most of the registered nutritionists are jobless," she said.
