Malnourishment among Indian children ‘catastrophic’

7th Nutra India Summit of nutraceutical providers opens in Bangalore

Anganwadi workers gathered outside City Railway Station to demand timely wages and other benefits.

By Deepashri Varadharajan

BANGALORE (March 15)—The three-day 7th Nutra India Summit that started here Thursday focuses on malnourishment and poor immunity among children in India.

The summit, whose aim is to harness the nutraceutical industry to develop health care systems and strengthen food security for developing nations, is being held for the first time in Bangalore, at Hotel Lalit Ashok.

Forty foreign delegates from 16 countries, academicians and nearly 17 pharmaceutical companies are attending. 

“Forty-two percent of children in India are malnourished,” Prof. Samir K. Brahmachari, secretary of the Department of Scientific & Industrial Research, said in a speech, describing that figure as “catastrophic” and stressing the need to incorporate secondary agriculture.

“Let nutrition reach every corner of India, so that no child sleeps with one meal a day,” Dr. V. Prakash, scientist, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, said in his address.

The chief guest at the inaugural function was the governor of Karnataka, Dr. Hans Raj Bharadwaj, who said India should have an integrated system of medicine.

“We cannot ignore the poor population,” Bharadwaj said in a speech. “Except the few islands of rich there is rampant poverty.”

Nutraceutical to overtake pharmaceutical?

M. M. Vidyashankar, principal secretary of the state government’s IT, BT and S&T Department predicted that the wellness market, whose commodity is nutraceuticals, will overtake the “sickness market” for pharmaceuticals.

Pingfan Rao from the Chinese Institute of Food Science and Technology said the world has two pressing challenges: climate change and feeding its populations.  

 “Some have too much to eat. Others have too little,” Rao said.

Raghuvir Kini, additional executive director at Pharmexcil, said that for many people in developing countries, traditional medicines are the only source of health.

Referring to Indo-China relations in medicine, Brahmachari said: “Whenever I think of cost, I think of China. They can make anything cheaper than we can make, except medicinal drugs.”

Bharadwaj: ‘Spurious’ drugs sent to poor

Bharadwaj said India’s economic policies can churn out billionaires in the corporate sector, but that the country is not sending anything to the rural sector in terms of education and health care.

“Only one institute in Bangalore provides some concession to heart patients,” Bharadwaj said. “The real problem is, when you send medicines for the poor, they’re all spurious.”

Bharadwaj said the drug industry needs tighter regulation.