By Joyce Ojanji
With anaemia being a serious global public health problem affecting 571 million women and 269 million young children worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched its first-ever comprehensive framework on reducing this burden.
The WHO cross programme initiative aims at improving the prevention, diagnosis and management of anaemia and there by accelerating reduction in its prevalence.
This framework is based on the core principles of primary health care, meeting people’s health needs through comprehensive promotive, protective, curative and rehabilitative care along the life course, systematically addressing the broader determinant of health and empowering individuals, families and communities to optimize their health.
Although the progress on reducing anaemia has been slow and the world is not on track to reach the global target, WHO has called on countries to accelerate action to halve anaemia prevalence in women of reproductive age by 2025.
“Most work on addressing anaemia has been focused on the prevention and treatment of iron deficiency,” says Francesco Branca, the Director of WHO’s Department of Nutrition and Food Safety.
“However, anaemia is a complex condition with multiple causes – including other nutritional deficiencies, infections, inflammation, gynecological and obstetric conditions, and inherited red blood cell disorders. All must be addressed to effectively prevent and treat anaemia.”
According to WHO, the new framework sets forth ways to address the direct causes, risk factors and broad social inequities that are fundamental drivers for anaemia. It describes the necessarily comprehensive approach that brings together multiple sectors and actors, and lays out key action areas to improve the coverage and uptake of interventions.
Acknowledging that health remains the predominant sector for delivering many of the recommended interventions, WHO adds that the framework also proposes actions that other societal stakeholders can take. These include governments, civil society, academia, researchers, funding agencies, international organizations and media. Each has its particular role to perform in reducing anaemia and keeping people healthy.
In 2019, anaemia affected 40% of children between 6 months and 5 years of age, 37% of pregnant women and 30% of women 15–49 years of age. It is most prevalent in low- and middle-income countries.
Anaemia increases the risk of infections and death, impairs cognitive performance, and causes extreme fatigue, poor pregnancy outcomes, loss of earnings, and poor growth and development. It is a strong indicator of overall health.
