Rajammal Devadas wins top nutrition award

By George Chakko

VIENNA, SEPT. 10.A scientist from Coimbatore, Dr. Rajammal P. Devadas, won the International Nutrition Award for 2001 from the International Union of Nutrition Sciences (IUNS) at the 17th International Congress of Nutrition held here recently.

The Chancellor and Chairperson of the Avinashilingam Trust and Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore, Dr. Rajammal began her research in the early sixties on ready to consume (RTC) foods under Dr. C. Gopalan of the National Institute of Nutrition.

The two succeeded in developing indigenous ingredients from jowar/ maize/ ragi and bengalgram/ greengram mixes alongside roasted groundnuts and jaggery to supplement an RTC of 300 calories and 10 gms protein per child per day to fill a calorie gap with a single 80-gm serving at a cost of 10 paise.

The idea and practice spread to several hundred pre-schools in the State. As a result the height and weight of infants and children improved.

Under Ms. Devadas's guidance, community nutrition training camps were set up in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Pondicherry.

A training camp for child-care workers in Malaysia and a health worker programme in Cambodia were also set up under her guidance.

Her training stretched to World Bank-assisted Tamil Nadu Integrated Nutrition Programme to reduce infant mortality rate (IMR) and malnutrition in ``less than six-year-old'' children.

Thanks to the applied research of her institute since 1962, a State-wide nutritious noon meal got off to a start.

In her award-receiving speech she presented details of her programmes which led to the disappearance of observable deficiency symptoms such as angular stomatitis, bleeding gums, sensitivity to light, dry and scaly skin or bitots spots in about 30 to 60 per cent of the cases studied.

Recipient of the International Danone Nutrition prize, Dr. Alfred Sommer, from the Johns Hopkins University and an expert on Vitamin-A research told The Hinduthat India, a leader in Vitamin- A nutritional studies, had now backtracked on it.

Dr. Sommer's comment are not easy to dismiss as he has studied Vitamin-A deficiency in several continents, including Africa and Asia.

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Section  : International
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