Speakers at a workshop on Friday urged the concerned quarters to develop proper legislation to ensure 100 per cent usage of iodine in the country.
Addressing the participants of media advisory training workshop on universal salt iodisation, organised by The Network for Consumer Protection, they said that approximately two million children are born with mental deficiencies due to iodine deficiency, on an annual basis.
They said that Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDDs) is a major health problem in Pakistan and more than half of the country’s population stands at the risk of developing IDDs.
Health expert Dr Maria Ahmed Qureshi from The Network said that the data indicates that iodine deficiencies have a direct effect on several indicators, including health and economic. It can negatively impact efforts being made for the millennium development goals to which Pakistan is a signatory.
She said that almost half of all newborn children in Pakistan are mentally weak due to an iodine deficiency in their mothers. She added that iodine deficiencies are the world’s leading preventable cause of mental retardation. Over a third of the global population remains at risk due to a lack of naturally available iodine in the soil.
She said that IDD occurs when people do not receive iodine in their diets on a regular basis and it can be easily corrected by adding iodine to salt. She said that IDD affects individual intelligence, but it can lower the IQ of a population by as much as 15 points.
Dr Maria said that the problem of iodine deficiency is especially serious for pregnant women and young children. She added that during pregnancy even milder deficiencies could harm foetal development and result in physical and mental retardation.
She said other effects of IDD included goitre, abnormal physical development, reproductive loss, and severe mental and physical retardation and an irreversible condition known as cretinism.