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Sion hospital to devise, make special food for malnourished kids in Mumbai

In a first-of-its-kind initiative in public hospitals, the LTMG Sion hospital owned by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation launched a new research facility which will devise a special nutritional mix and will also produce it for malnourished children, including children with cancer and HIV.

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In a first-of-its-kind initiative in public hospitals, the LTMG Sion hospital owned by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation launched a new research facility which will devise a special nutritional mix and will also produce it for malnourished children, including children with cancer and HIV.

On Tuesday, the hospital inaugurated the first Urban Nutrition Rehabilitation and Research Centre in the Paediatric Department of LTMC-Sion in partnership with UNICEF Maharashtra.

This facility is an upgrade to the existing nutritional centre which was set up in 1992 at Sion hospital. As of now the centre has been producing the WHO recommended medical nutrition therapy (MNT) that consists of peanut butter, skimmed milk powder, powdered sugar, soybean oil and micronutrients in the recommended proportion. Now the upgraded centre will look to tweak the existing formula to give malnourished children more options.

Dr. Alka Jadhav, professor of paediatrics at Sion Hospital, said, "Malnutrition remains the biggest threat to child survival, growth and development despite significant development in the social and economic sector across the globe. It continues to be a huge public health challenge and future global prosperity and security are intimately linked with our ability to respond adequately to this urgent challenge."

Talking about why such a centre is needed in urban areas, Dr Jadhav said that a demographic transformation is moving the problem of hunger and under-nutrition to urban areas. "Mumbai, the state capital, is the epicentre of urbanisation in India. In Mumbai, 56% of households are located in areas designated by the census as 'slums'. Under-nutrition among slum-dwelling children in Mumbai is pervasive- 16% of under-fives are wasted, 36% are underweight, and 47% are stunted," said Dr Jadhav.

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