More than 2.5 million girls reached with iron supplements under the GIFTS Programme – GHS

Accra: Ghana under the Girls Iron-Folate Table Supplementation (GIFTS) Programme has reached more than 2.5 million girls with regular iron and folic acid supplements, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has said.Dr Marion Okoh-Owusu, the Director, Family Health Division of the Ghana Health Service, said apart from helping to reduce anaemia prevalence from 48 per cent in 2017 to 44 per cent in 2022, the intervention had improved the health of girls and their performance in school.The Director Family Health Division said this in a speech read on behalf of the Director-General of the GHS during the dissemination of findings of the 2022 GIFTS impact assessment in Accra.The GIFTS programme, which started in 2017, is an integrated nutrition and health education programme targeted at adolescent girls enrolled in Junior High School (JHS), Senior High School (SHS), Technical Education and Vocational Training (TVET), as well as all as out-of-school adolescent girls aged 10-19 years across the 16 regions.It includes education on anaemia and malaria prevention, messaging on water, sanitation, and hygiene and weekly Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) tablets given to girls.Dr Okoh-Owusu said it formed part of efforts to reduce the high prevalence of anaemia among girls.Despite the successes chalked up over the period there were challenges, such as the operational cost of making sure the supplement got to the girls on time, and lack of information on safety among others, Dr Okoh-Owusu stated.About sustainability, she advocated partnerships to procure IFAs to ensure a continuous supply of adequate quantities of the supplement.The Director Family Health Division said to ensure women and girls in their reproductive age had adequate nutrition while on the supplements, there was the need to engage the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to have diversified diets.She urged community leaders, stakeholders, and partners to support and ensure that Ghana's school-age and adolescents grew into healthy, productive and successful adults.M s Eugenia Demuyakor, with the Center for Disease Control USA, presenting findings on nutritional status, knowledge, attitudes and practices among in-school adolescents in Ghana among other things, called for the consistent monitoring of the nutrition metrics as it was critical to inform the strengthening of targeted public health interventions and national policies.Ms Esi Amoaful, the Principal Investigator, giving the rationale and history behind GIFTS, noted that the first phase of the programme started in 2017 with four regions and was scaled up in 2019 across all 16 regions.Development partners at the event pledged their continuous support to the programme to ensure the well-being of school-aged boys and girls.Source: Ghana News Agency