Asmat Malnutrition, Slap for All of Us

Asmat Malnutrition, Slap for All of Us - Healthy Friend, are you an active Instagram user? Yep, as one of the most popular social media right now, there are many things that we have witnessed on Instagram. Starting from the latest fashion trends , vacation style artists,  celebrity makeup products , to everyday activities selebgram that seems almost perfect like fairy tales. But, have you seen the news about the Asmat malnutrition case on Instagram or other social media?

As one of the countries with good economic development, the purchasing power of Indonesian people has also improved compared to the new decades. However, behind it all, the gap still occurs. Asmat, which has been in the spotlight a few months ago, is a region in the easternmost part of Indonesia, Papua Province. According to the World Food Program, Papua is one of the regions with the highest levels of malnutrition together with East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). With areas that are difficult to reach because they are separated by the sea with mountainous land conditions, access to food, health information, and medical devices in Asmat has become limited.

In a previous expert question article , it was mentioned that measles for children has a dangerous impact. When a child who is not vaccinated has measles, he will lose weight and be at risk of blindness due to vitamin A deficiency. With this weight loss, infectious diseases are very easy to attack the child so that if not handled properly, death is very likely to occur. Therefore, the scope of immunization, especially measles immunization in Asmat is questionable.

Not only discussed in national media
This extraordinary event slapped us all. This case is not only hotly discussed in local and national media, but also in international media. " The hollow eyes of hunger in Indonesia's Papua " written by Step Vaessen in Aljazeera media . This article illustrates how deaths from starvation and measles outbreaks are ironic because they occur in the largest gold mining area in the world operated by an American company, Freeport. This irony has also been discussed before in TIME with the article title " A Tragic, Forgotten Place. Poverty and Death in Indonesia's Land of Gold ".

Apart from handling in terms of nutrition and health, this treatment can not be separated from improvement from the other side
In the commemoration of the National Nutrition Day on January 25, 2018, the importance of specific and sensitive nutrition interventions was discussed. Specific nutrition interventions are efforts to prevent and reduce nutritional problems directly, for example by providing immunization and supplementary feeding (PMT). Whereas sensitive nutrition interventions are efforts to prevent and reduce nutrition problems indirectly, usually carried out by the non-health sector, for example by providing clean water, poverty alleviation, and infrastructure improvements.

herefore, topics related to nutrition are no longer only used by the Nutrition Directorate of the Ministry of Health. This topic was also in fact discussed in other ministries that might have never discussed nutrition before, for example the Ministry of Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration to the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education.

Asmat malnutrition case so a  wake up call for  us all. You agree?