JAKARTA, 27 April 2009: Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province continues to grapple with malnutrition, with cases of underweight, stunting and wasting among children exceeding thresholds set by the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN and officials say.
East Nusa Tenggara – comprising about 500 islands but dominated by Flores, Sumba and West Timor, the western half of the island of Timor – is one of the poorest provinces in Indonesia, with about 30 percent of the population living below the poverty line, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.
The Health Ministry’s Basic Health Research 2008 (Riskesdas 2008) reveals that the number of underweight children, or low weight for age, in East Nusa Tenggara reached 33.6 percent, exceeding the WHO threshold of 30 percent, which indicates a significant public health problem.
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