CV’s Guides Nutrition Workers Against COVID-19

With COVID-19 positive cases on the rise in the region and LGUs contemplating extension of enhanced community quarantine here and there, food and nutrition insecurity is a looming cloud just beyond the horizon as resources start to deplete and access to food has become more and more difficult.

This could most probably cause a spike in acute malnutrition problems in the community which is why the National Nutrition Council 7 (NNC 7) found the need to brief local nutrition workers about possible ways to respond to the pandemic and ensure that nutrition services are still provided to those who are most vulnerable.

In two sessions held with the Human Resource for Health assigned to Nutrition (HRH-N), Nutritionists-Dietitians and Nurses were given an orientation of Nutrition in Emergencies in the Context of COVID-19 held on 07 and 13 April 2020 for Negros Oriental and Siquijor and Cebu and Bohol assigned HRH-N.

Using key messages from the Global Nutrition Cluster’s Brief in IYCF-E and Management of Child Wasting in the Context of COVID-19 and incorporating Nutrition in Emergencies and information management principles all wrapped up in the Central Visayas setting, the orientation sessions ensured that the HRH-N have an idea of the nutrition cluster’s response.

Banking on that, HRH-N are expected to advise their assigned local nutrition clusters on how to approach COVID-19 and its effects in relation to the previously shared national and regional nutrition cluster advisories.

A separate session shall also be conducted with Provincial and City Nutrition Workers for orientation scheduled on 21 April 2020.