22 February 2021, Cagayan de Oro City –  The National Nutrition Council (NNC) X conducted a virtual orientation on the Electronic Operation Timbang (eOPT) Plus tools last 18 February 2021 via Zoom. The activity intends to orient all the nutrition workers in Region 10 regarding the updated eOPT Plus tools. A total of 153 Nutrition Action Officers (NAOs), District/City Nutrition Program Coordinators (D/CNPCs), Barangay Nutrition Scholars (BNSs) and Nutritionist-Dietitians of Department of Health (DOH) attended the orientation.

The first quarter of the year is the OPT Plus time for the nutrition workers and is considered as one of the busiest times for the BNSs. It is the annual mass weighing and height taking of all preschool children aged 0-59 months old in a community to identify and locate the malnourished children. Data generated from the OPT Plus are used for local nutrition planning particularly in prioritizing nutrition interventions and target groups. So, timely and accurate data of the 0-59 months old children nutritional status is vital.

Emergencies like earthquakes, floods and even the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic pose a possible threat to an increased prevalence rate of malnutrition which could mainly affect preschool children. To have a unified recording and consolidation of data, NNC with the assistance from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations developed the eOPT Plus tool for Acute Malnutrition which will be used during emergencies. The DOH 2021 projected population is also included as one of the major updates in the tool.

With the development of the eOPT Plus tools, NNC X deemed it necessary to orient the nutrition workers, particularly the BNSs and the LGU nutrition staff involved in encoding and consolidating the data.

Before the demonstration of the tool, NPC Gladys Mae Fernandez gave a brief overview of the eOPT Plus tool for Acute Malnutrition and shared that NNC is distributing mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) tapes for children and adults. The MUAC is widely used at the community level for rapid screening and admission tools for potential Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) or Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM).

NO II Arlie Joy O. Damiles facilitated the step-by-step demonstration on how to use the updated eOPT Plus tools. She encouraged the participants to read thoroughly the instruction sheet before using the tool. The barangay customization of the tools was made possible because of the 2021 DOH age-specific projected population, she added.

NO II Damiles highlighted the new key features of the tool such as the auto-fill of the population and auto-labelling of the Philippine Standard Geographic Code (PSGC) in the summary sheet. The updated tool will also count the number of mothers/caregivers of children classified with MAM or SAM and the number of children with incomplete information which will reflect in the summary table.

After the demonstration of the tool, an open forum was held to cater questions and clarifications of the nutrition workers. One of the questions raised during the open forum was the clarification if the BNSs can still use the previous eOPT Plus tool while waiting for the updated regular tools. NO II Damiles reiterated that those who started encoding their OPT Plus results may use the old tool for encoding purposes only, but need to transfer the data to the updated tool once available.

“Ma’am, let say we have our MUAC tapes, okay ra ba jud na mag-MUAC na lang mi, dili na mi mugamit og weighing scale ug height boards?” (Is it really okay if we will only use the MUAC tapes and we’ll no longer use the weighing scale and height boards?), Ms. Luvi Joi Pepino, Provincial Nutritionist of Lanao del Norte inquired.

NO II Damiles emphasized that if the use of the traditional tools such as hanging type weighing scale and height boards is possible and permitted, they must use it. This is to record and generate nutritional status for the weight-for-age (underweight), height-for-age (stunting) and weight-for-length/height (MAM/SAM) indicators. “The eOPT Plus tool for Acute Malnutrition will only generate the data based on MUAC cut-off standards or the weight-for-length/height indicators.” NO II Damiles added.

The nutrition workers expressed their thanks to NNC X for organizing the activity which gave them clear information on the updates of the eOPT Plus tools.

Moreover, NNC hopes that the updated eOPT Plus tools will help speed up the recording and reporting of the preschool children’s nutritional status that will determine timely and relevant nutrition responses and intervention. Kudos to all nutrition workers, our heroes of today. (NO II Arlie Joy O. Damiles)