Despite India’s economic growth over the past decade, the country continues to be compared with Africa in poverty surveys. A recent study reported that India’s poorest states have more people in poverty than Africa’s poorest nations. Hunger indexes are dismal, with 42 percent of all Indian children under age five underweight.

An article last week by the New York Times reporter Jim Yardley, reveals India’s current struggle to alleviate poverty and get food to every family in the nation. In his article, “India asks, should food be a right for the poor?,” Yardley discusses the contention over universal food support in India. President of the Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, is pushing to create a “constitutional right to food and expand the existing entitlement so that every Indian family would qualify for a monthly 77-pound bag of grain, sugar and kerosene.” The proposal has the party divided. Debate also ensued over how India should deliver its social programs. Many economists support turning to a market system of vouchers instead of a physical distribution of grain.

As officials struggle to come to a solution, individuals like Ratan Bhuria and his children suffer from hunger. His daughter, Nani, is four years old and weighs 20 pounds and his son, Jogdiya, at age two weighs only eight pounds. They are not receiving government food or cooking fuel, and the children are not enrolled in school where they might receive a free daily lunch.  Breaking the cycle of poverty, which often includes the sale or bartering of food ration cards for loans, is proving a challenge for many Indians under the current system.

Vitamin Angels works with a network of 16 local organizations in India to reach over 1 million children under five with vitamin A supplements in India. You can support these projects by making a donation here>>
 

Read the NY Times article>>

Vitamin Angels recently received an update from our partners, Love a Child, in Haiti. Carole Stufflebeam, a Medical Administrator with Love a Child sent the following photos and captions about their distribution of vitamin A and albendazole in the Ouest region of Haiti.

Vitamin Angels has made it possible for LAC’s Jesus Healing Center to reach out in to the very remote areas to see that the children in their zones receive Antiparasitic and Vitamin A.

Through the LAC Mobile Clinics the remote areas can now be treated with Albendazole and Vitamin A.

LAC and MSPP work in collaboration to get every child in their zone vaccinated. As Central location for the zones Vaccination program they have trained local Haitians to cover the zone through the schools, orphanages and refugee camp.

 2 Satellite Clinics now supplied on a regular basis with meds that allows them to once again open their doors.

Working with MSPP to provide a complete vaccination program for all.Miss Jean, MSPP Assistant Director, coordinates the program to make it possible, as LAC and Vitamin Angels reaches out to compliment it.

Each school, orphanage, and Displaced Family Camp are visited first. Each community will be visited as they go house to house vaccinating the children. 

These wonderful programs would not be able to have a complete vaccination program if it were not for the generous donations from Vitamin Angels. Making it possible for LAC and MSPP to be successful for these children of Haiti.

Reaching out to make it possible for 1000s of children to be vaccinated and receive Vitamin A and Albendazole, who otherwise would not be reached.

Last week we had a special visitor here at the Vitamin Angels office in Santa Barbara. Sister Denise Desil a nun, healthcare worker, and Vitamin Angels’ field partner from Haiti came to report on the conditions post-earthquake and how our support is helping the people of rural Haiti.
 
Sister Denise works as a nurse and midwife for the Little Sisters of St. Thérese serving the rural community of Baraderes. Vitamin Angels connected with their group through our partners Hope for Haiti and provides vitamin A and prenatals to the women and children of the entire region. Through clinics and convents The Little Sisters of St. Thérese have offered medical and childbirth services, food and vitamins, education, agriculture assistance, elderly care, and counseling to the area’s 40,000 plus residents since 1972.  Their community health workers travel out into the local communities to distribute prenatal vitamins to new and expecting mothers. Sister Denise also tells us of ‘mother’s clubs’ they have set up to provide support and education to expecting mothers in addition to a regular prenatal clinic. These important resources are leading to healthier births and babies.

The Sister shared with us her personal account of the tragic earthquake earlier this year along with pictures and video of the profound devastation.  The morning of the earthquake, she was visiting the motherhouse in Port-au-Prince, a headquarters for the 200 nuns that together serve 20 communities, before making the long trip back to her home city. Sitting in her third story bedroom when the quake hit she recalls, “the house started shaking and I saw death before me.” When the shaking stopped a young woman helped her quickly down the stairs and as she emerged the building began to crumble behind her. “I lost everything,” she recounted, “I spent 7 days in my dress.” 15 of their 42 missions were destroyed or severely damaged, over half of the students in the afternoon school were killed, and countless others left injured, homeless, and hungry.

Despite the recent disaster Sister Denise speaks of her work with a powerfully positive tone, having great faith that with continued support and education the people of Haiti will recover and rebuild. Her visit was both humbling and gratifying for our small staff bringing renewed hope and inspiration for all that we do here at Vitamin Angels.

Watch our interview with Sister Denise in Baraderes >>

If you flew United this month, you may have noticed a familiar face in United Airline's Hemispheres magazine. President and founder of Vitamin Angels, Howard Schiffer, was featured in an article by the in-flight mag. If your feet were grounded for the month, you can check out the article here.>> 

The Lancet just released child mortality data for 2008. As the report states, "up-to-date information on the causes of child deaths is crucial to guide global efforts to improve child survival." The report is based on availability of more recent data and improved methods that enabled updated estimates of cause-specific child mortality and is expected to be updated yearly. 

Here are some key points:

• Child mortality has been declining worldwide as a result of socioeconomic development and implementation of child survival interventions, yet 8.8 million children die every year before their fifth birthday.  However, an acceleration of the decline in mortality is possible with expansion of interventions targeting the important causes of death. (p. 1969/1)*

• Despite a continuing increase in the population of children younger than 5 years, the mortality rate is declining: 8.795 million deaths occurred in 2008 versus 10.6 million per year during 2000–03. With greater declines in mortality in children aged 1–59 months than in neonates (0-27 days), the proportion of deaths in neonates has increased from 37% in 2000–03, to 41% (3.575 million) of 8.795 million deaths in children younger than 5 years in 2008 (p. 1985/17).

• Table 1 and Figure 4 (both on page 1973/5) are great overviews of Global causes of child deaths.

• Of the estimated 8.795 million deaths in children younger than 5 years worldwide in 2008, infectious diseases caused 68% (5.970 million), with the largest percentages due to pneumonia (18%, 1.575 million), diarrhea (15%, 1.336 million,) and malaria (8%, 0.732 million). 

• 41% (3.575 million) of deaths occurred in neonates(0-27 days), and the most important single causes were preterm birth complications (12%, 1.033 million), birth asphyxia (9%, 0.814 million), sepsis (6%, 0.521 million), and pneumonia (4%, 0.386 million). 

• 49% (4.294 million) of child deaths occurred in five countries: India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, and China.  The largest numbers of deaths were in the African region (4.199 million) and in the southeast Asian region (2.390 million) (p. 1984/16).   

• The concentration of all-cause child deaths and deaths due to some specific causes, such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, malaria, and AIDS, in a small set of countries is striking. This result is partly related to the large populations of children younger than 5 years in these countries, but also some diseases are concentrated because of epidemiological and social conditions (p. 1985/17). 

• Undernutrition, including stunting, severe wasting, deficiencies of vitamin A and zinc, and sub-optimum breastfeeding, is not presented as a direct cause of death in these statistics, but has been found to be an underlying cause in a third of deaths in children younger than 5 years (p. 1985/17). 

• Successful implementation of interventions to prevent the development of undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies and to treat severe acute malnutrition would substantially reduce child mortality and improve the health and development of surviving children (p. 1985/17).

 * page number full Lancet publication, Volume 375/page number from excerpt

Read the Lancet article here>>

Ada Laurén

Paulina (17 years), an indigenous Quechua woman, was waiting on the 'porch' (a concrete slap about 2’x5’) in front of Dr. Cerillo’s home and clinic when we arrived at 7am today. We were 5 hours from Santa Cruz and another hour and a half from our base in El Puente. Paulina’s two children, David (4 years) and Claudia (11 months), are bundled up against the cold morning air. Paulina has walked, gotten rides and paid a minibus fare to get here – about an hour and a half journey from her village. She is worried about David and an abrasion looking rash on the right side of his face (skin problems are often associated with vitamin A deficiency). Both children have runny noses, colds and respiratory problems, conditions which can be life threatening for children who are chronically malnourished. Paulina tells us that she recently lost her two month old baby because the roads were impassable and she couldn’t get to medical help in time. 

After a consultation with Paulina, our group along with Dr. Cerillo and two local health nurses, Lila and Maxima, drove another hour and a half to reach to Arca de Noe for a first round of distributions and then traveled on to Monte Sinai. The road was honestly invisible for 45 minutes as our Land Rover plowed its way through the 8’ tall grass (watch the video). In the communities we visited distributions were run out of open-walled buildings with a dirt floors, thatched roofs, and nothing but wooden plank benches inside. The mothers and children all waited patiently as Fatima and Felicidad, from our partner organization World Concern, made sure every child under 5 received vitamin A and antiparasitics. The posters Felicidad made to explain the importance of vitamin A and deworming were a major attraction for the children. We saw them repeatedly pointing to the pictures and diligently reading every word. Dr. Cerillo and his nurses spent time with each family, listening to the children’s lungs, consulting on health problems and charting heights (most are stunted due to chronic malnutrition) and weights. 

Marcia Furst and Tom Schott, our friends from Vitamin Shoppe who joined us on this trip, helped interviewed some of the women and children in Monte Sinai and later Lagunillas. We meet Flores Monteno who tells me her daughter Silma will not eat, one of the signs of chronic food insecurity. Children’s bodies know there is not enough food and often go into starvation mode with reduced appetite only exacerbating the problem. In addition to the vitamin A, we gave Flores a bottle of children’s multiples provided for this trip by our partners at Vitamin World. 

Later we met, Marybell (8 years), Jose (11 years) and Rosemary (14 years) whose mother died three years ago during childbirth, again because it was winter, the roads were impassable and she couldn’t get to doctor or hospital in time. Rosemary, hardly ever smiles, a reflection of toll raising her siblings while her father searches for work to feed his family has taken. Essential nutrients will not solve every problem and yet they would be a step in the right direction towards assuring healthy outcomes for mothers and babies.

These individuals face many challenges in achieving health, obtaining the nutrition they need, and finding the medical care that can be a matter of survival. We talked with Fatima about ways to expand our program and continuing reaching those no one else is reaching. We know these children need so much and also know the vitamin A is a really good and important start.

Check out new photos from the trip and look for new field stories from Bolivia coming soon!