Over the past three months of community quarantine, we witnessed how pandemic affected the usual daily living of people both locally and globally. The economy stood still and deteriorated with everyone just asked to be at home. The impacts of COVID-19 are extensive and have far reaching consequences. People got sick, some lives were lost, children stopped going to school, some employees lost their jobs, and the healthcare system and even local government offices are overloaded. Not all however turned worse due to the pandemic. Here in the Cordillera, the nutritional status of children 0-59 did not get worse with the pandemic rather there were more improvements reported.
The National Nutrition Council CAR conducted a mini survey on the effect of the COVID 19 pandemic on the nutritional status of 0-59 months children since the start of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in mid-March until end of May 2020 or about more than two months of lockdown. The study showed that that 53 % of the barangays surveyed reported improved nutritional status of children 0-59 months while 40 % reported no change, and 7 % reported having additional children getting malnourished but the worsening of the nutritional status were not attributed to the pandemic. The survey was participated by 58 respondents composed of local nutrition workers from 39 municipalities. Most of the respondents were directly monitoring the situation of children at the barangay level.
The study has identified three factors that contributed to improved nutrition in majority of the areas and in preventing deterioration many other areas. First factor is on food supply. Most of the respondents said that there was adequate food supply for families during the ECQ and GCQ with additional supplies from DSWD, LGUs, cooperatives, private organizations, and other donors. Some respondents said that those in rural areas are mostly into farming and have available food supplies. In addition many of the households also have vegetable gardens that help sustained food on the table since the pandemic started. This could be an indication of more resilient food systems in the Cordillera rural communities.
The second major factor is the that the children were better cared of because parents were at home during the lockdown. “Parents have more time at home since they cannot go elsewhere aside from the farm. They have more time to cook food and bath their children”, said by one of the respondents.
Third factor is continued nutrition interventions by some LGUs during the pandemic. While most LGU health and nutrition workers were took in frontline service functions related to implementing lockdown protocols, some LGUs managed to continue micronutrient supplementation and promotion of proper infant and young child feeding among lactating women. Some Barangay Nutrition Scholars (BNSs) reported that they continued close follow up of the malnourished children in their barangay even during quarantine months. Some LGU food distributions were also focused families with malnourished children.
While we are happy that the nutritional status had not deteriorated in the first two months of the pandemic, we need to be continuously on guard to ensure that the nutritional status of these young age group do not worsen as the pandemic continues. We need ensure that economic activities that bring food on the table get normalized so families can sustain good nutrition for all family members especially the children 0-59 months old who are more nutritionally vulnerable.
#HealAsOne against the COVID 19 pandemic. /pqm/dj
