Predictors of Nutritional Status and Mortality of Children in Southern Ethiopia

Ethiopia is one of the poorest nations in the world with high prevalence of child mortality and under nutrition. Despite progress made in reducing stunting among children in the nation, child malnutrition and deaths are still high. In addition to the deep rooted poverty, recurrent drought and crop failures did aggravate the situation and international interventions were primarily targeted at provision of emergency food aid which couldn’t solve the problem in the long run. However, during the past decade, Ethiopia did attained significant economic development. The growing economy is expected contribute to reduction in child under nutrition and mortality. Yet, limited studies have been done reporting specific magnitude of child under nutrition and mortality across regions in the nation.   Therefore, there is a need to assess current level of child death and under nutrition as well as possible predictors of the problem. In this study, we conducted household survey together with anthropometric measurement of mothers and children in a remote drought prone farming community in Oromiya region of Southern Ethiopia. Results of our study indicated high prevalence of child under nutrition in the study area. We also found sever problem of drinking water in the study area. In addition, diarrhoea and child deaths were also widespread. Such factors like age of children, nutritional status of mothers, and number of child births, household economic status and polygamy appear to predict nutritional status and deaths of children. Thus, we conclude that more efforts need to be done to meet development needs of marginal communities so that  the problem of child under nutrition and mortality can be addressed in the nation. Keywords: Anthropometry, Child Death, under nutrition, Southern Ethiopi

Cost-Minimized Nutritionally Adequate Food Baskets as Basis for Culturally Adapted Dietary Guidelines for Ethiopians

The high prevalence of undernutrition, especially stunting, in Ethiopia hampers the country’s economic productivity and national development. One of the obstacles to overcome undernutrition is the relatively high cost of food for low economic groups. In this study, linear programming was used to (i) identify urban and rural nutritionally adequate food baskets (FBs) with the highest affordability for an Ethiopian family of five and (ii) create urban and rural FBs, optimized for cultural acceptability, which are affordable for a family with the lowest income. Nutritionally adequate rural and urban FBs with highest affordability cost as little as Ethiopian Birr (ETB) 31 and 38 (~USD 1.07 and 1.31), respectively, but have poor dietary diversity (16 and 19 foods). FBs that cost ETB 71.2 (~USD 2.45) contained 64 and 48 foods, respectively, and were much more similar to the food supply pattern reported by FAO (15% and 19% average relative deviation per food category). The composed FBs, which are affordable for the greater part of the Ethiopian population, may serve as a basis for the development of culturally acceptable food-based dietary guidelines. These guidelines would recommend a diet composed of approximately up to 60% cereals, up to 20% roots and tubers, 10% legumes, and 10% fruits and vegetables by weight, plus only a small share from animal foods

Aflatoxin exposure among lactating women in southern Ethiopia

In Ethiopia and many other low-income countries, little is known about the exposure of lactating women to aflatoxin, which is a major health concern to the mother and her nursing infant. We determined the aflatoxin B1 contamination of family foods (AFB1) and urinary aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) of lactating women in Sidama, southern Ethiopia, and compared the levels across agroecological settings (lowland, midland, highland) and two seasons. We conducted two surveys (n = 360) that represented the dry and wet seasons of the locality. AFM1 and AFB1 were determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Statistical analysis was made using Mann–Whitney U test and Kruskal–Wallis test. The median (interquartile range) AFB1 was 0.94 (0.63–1.58) ppb. AFB1 was detected in 95.6% of the food samples, and 13.6% exceeded the 2.0 ppb threshold. We observed an increasing trend for aflatoxin exposure from highland to lowland (p < .001), but there was no difference between seasons (p = .743). The median (interquartile range) urinary AFM1 was 214 (undetectable to 2,582) ppt, and AFM1 was detectable in 53.3% of the samples. Urinary AFM1 showed significant difference among agroecological zones (p < .001) but not between seasons (p = .275). A significant but weak correlation was observed between AFB1 and urinary AFM1 (rs = 0.177, p = .001). We concluded that lactating women in Sidama, especially those in the lowland area, have unsafe exposure to aflatoxin