BAIS CITY - While other LGUs are reeling with COVID-19 response and have difficulty in procurement of micronutrient and supplies for dietary supplementation, Bais City has already institutionalized funding for the provision of these services in the first 1000 days of life. Focusing on early detection of nutrition problems, the Bias City Nutrition Committee (CNC) has committed to prevent malnutrition specially its long-term effects such as poor mental development, weak immune system, and stunting.
In 2017, the CNC was able to pass a resolution to institutionalize a budget for the procurement of said commodities and has since helped both pregnant mothers and their children reach their caloric and nutrient needs. Resources for the nutrition program from Gender and Development fund, the Disaster Risk Reduction and Mitigation fund and other LGU fund sources were mobilized to ensure to the continued nutrition services to its populace.
Along with a strong collaboration with Barangay Nutrition Committees, the city is able to distribute nutrition goods to target groups. The City Nutrition Program Coordinator conducts barangay visitation for the promotion of key nutrition programs, projects and activities and monitoring its program implementation.
Since the start of the pandemic, the provision of these commodities has cushioned the increase of malnutrition in the LGU. The availability of Lipid Based Nutritional Supplements in the barangay help reduced the prevalence of malnutrition in the city and it suits to the present situation where social distancing is required because a preschooler is given 30 sachets in a month not like the traditional supplementary feeding program where a preschooler needs to be at the feeding site every day.
Such efforts enabled the city to improve the nutrition situation with a wasting prevalence of 8.8% in 2017 to 3.7% in 2021 despite the challenges of the pandemic. Its first 1000 days program has proved to be effective as it drastically reduce stunting from 23.6% in 2017 to 10.59% in 2021. // NGS
