71 million hit by iodine deficiency in India

About 71 million people in India suffer from Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD), the Union health ministry has said.

A mapping of the risk showed that neither any state nor any union territory is completely free of the IDD risk with Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar being the worst hit.

Statistics furnished by the ministry of health and family welfare in its report tabulated last month revealed that 1.3 crore people in UP alone were suffering from IDD. The figures of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar stood at 0.82 crore and 0.62 crore respectively.

The spread of IDD is far and wide with poverty being a key driver. Ashvini Hiran, COO, Consumer Products Business, Tata Chemicals, said, “Affordability of good and pure salt at the base of the pyramid is an issue. This has led to the consumption of unbranded salt which is either not adequately iodized or worse not iodized at all.”

 In class three towns and below where a family’s monthly income is less than Rs5,000, the budget conscious housewives struggle to get pure and good quality iodized salt at an affordable price, Hiran said.

Dr VM Tapshalkar, project director at Impact India Foundation said, “People avoid intake of iodine as they consider it to be costlier.”
He said IDD might be classified into two groups: subclinical deficiency and clinical deficiency.  “Generally in Maharashtra people suffer from sub-clinical deficiencies like mental retardation and lack of concentration,” he added.  

Maharashtra and Gujarat feature prominently among the troubled states, with 0.62 and 0.46 crore people in the two states affected by IDD respectively.

The government said it was doing its best to promote and enforce the use of Iodized salt. Salt Commissionerate (an initiative of the Union ministry of commerce and industry) claimed it had over the recent years enlisted support of salt manufacturers and this had led to an improvement in the intake of iodized salt.

The industry too said it is doing its bit. Hiran said, “Innovative consumer activation like nukkad sabha and street plays are also organised in rural markets to educate people on the benefits of iodized salt.”