The Jharkhand government has announced the launch of the SAAMAR campaign to tackle malnutrition in the state.

We can expect an MCQ like:

Q.SAAMAR campaign sometimes seen in news is related to:

() Bovine health

() Mother and Child Health

() Non-communicable diseases

() None of these

SAAMAR

• SAAMAR is an acronym for Strategic Action for Alleviation of Malnutrition and Anemia Reduction.
• The campaign aims to identify anaemic women and malnourished children and converge various departments to effectively deal with the problem in a state where malnutrition has been a major problem.
• Every second child in the state is stunted and underweight and every third child is affected by stunting and every 10th child is affected by severe wasting and around 70% of children are anaemic NFHS-4 data.

Features of the scheme

• Although existing schemes are there, seeing the current situation, the intervention was required with a ‘different approach to reduce malnutrition.
• SAAMAR has been launched with a 1000 days target, under which annual surveys will be conducted to track the progress.
• It talks of convergence of various departments such as the Rural Development Department and Food and Civil Supplies and engagement with school management committees, gram sabhas among others and making them aware of nutritional behaviour.
• Most importantly, the campaign, as per the note, also tries to target Primarily Vulnerable Tribal Groups.

Outlined strategy under the scheme

• To tackle severe acute malnutrition children, every Anganwadi Centres will be engaged to identify these children and subsequently will be treated at the Malnutrition Treatment Centres.
• In the same process, the anaemic women will also be listed and will be referred to health centres in serious cases.
• All of these will be done by measuring Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) of women and children through MUAC tapes and Edema levels.
• Angawadi’s Sahayia and Sevika will take them to the nearest Health Centre where they will be checked again and then registered on the portal of State Nutrition Mission.

Why need such a scheme?

• The state government runs various schemes under Child Development Schemes, National Nutrition Mission among others to deal with the situation, but it is not enough.
• Dealing with malnutrition in the state monitoring has been an important concern due to the lack of doctors or health care workers.

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