India tries new ways to reach its underfed children

By Jonathan Allen

BADARWAS, India (Reuters) - A couple of months ago, Sheela Adivasi's infant son fell sick and his eyes filled with pus. By the time the infection cleared up, Deepak's pupils had turned a pearly white. He is now permanently blind.

It did not help matters that Deepak is malnourished, as are half of all young children in India. His belly is swollen, his dry skin speckled with dark dots, and his hair is thin and yellowing. Had he not been so starved of vitamins, he probably would have suffered only an itchy but harmless bout of pink eye.

Belatedly, he is getting some nutrients in a special clinic for malnourished children in Badarwas, a tiny town about an hour's drive from his mud-walled home in a village in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

The clinic, a concrete room filled with a dozen beds and prone to powercuts, is part of India's latest attempt to reduce a malnutrition rate twice that of sub-Saharan Africa. For now, Deepak is far from the only child being reached too late.

It is a problem with "dire consequences for morbidity, mortality, productivity and economic growth," a World Bank report said in 2005, and shows little signs of fading even as India's economy booms.

Born underweight and then underfed during the crucial early stages of development, millions of Indian children grow up shorter, weaker and less smart than their better fed peers.

They end up less productive workers, too, costing India about 3 percent of national income, the bank said. The problem looks unlikely to disappear for at least the next couple of decades.

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