Until 2022, The Number Of Stunting Cases In NTT Is Still 77,388 Children

Children are given vitamins in the context of BIAN (ANTARA)

Head of the Population and Civil Registry Health Office of East Nusa Tenggara Province Ruth Laiskodat said the number of stunted children in the island-based province had decreased from 81,434 children in 2018 to 77,338 children in 2022.

"The NTT Provincial Government wants the problem of stunting to continue to decrease according to the target set by the central government to reach 14 percent," he said, quoted by ANTARA, Monday, March 6.

Ruth Laiskodat said this was related to the efforts of the East Nusa Tenggara Provincial Government in dealing with children under five who were stunted.

According to him, the East Nusa Tenggara Provincial Government since 2022 has been aggressively carrying out operations to weigh children under five to make it easier for the government to detect children who are stunting in every village and sub-district in NTT.

He said the hard work carried out by the NTT government in realizing the acceleration of stunting reduction had yielded optimal results, as seen from the percentage of NTT stunting decreased significantly for five consecutive years from 2018 to 2022, down on average every year by 4.4 percent.

The former Head of BPOM for NTT Province added that in 2018 there were 35.4 percent or 81,434 children under five in NTT who failed to grow in children but after various program interventions, such as providing additional food and infrastructure development as well as through the provision of clean water for the community's needs, the number of stunted children in NTT fell to 17.7 percent or the remaining 77,338 children under stunted.

According to him, the development of stunting data for the period of August 2021 and August 2022 tends to decline from 20.9 percent in 2021 to 17.7 percent in 2022.

However, he said, there were two districts that experienced an increase in the percentage of increasing the number of stunted children, namely West Manggarai Regency and Central Sumba Regency.

Meanwhile, the district with the highest stunting is South Middle East Regency (TTS), which is 28.3 percent or 11.642 toddlers and the lowest is Nagekeo Regency with 8.4 percent of toddlers stunting as many as 946 children under five.

He added that in February 2022 and August 2022 there was a 2.3 percent reduction in stunting in NTT, from 22.0 percent in February to 17.7 percent in August 2022.

"Only West Sumba Regency experienced a slight increase in stunting, although only 0.6 percent, from 22.7 percent for the February 2022 period or 2,306 toddlers to 23.3 percent or 2,611 toddlers in the August 2022 period," said Ruth Laiskodat.

According to him, the Provincial Government of East Nusa Tenggara continues to strive to reduce the number of stunted children so that in 2023 it will decrease again from 17.7 percent to 14 percent or close to the target of the NTT Province RPJMD in 2023 to 10-12 percent.

"We are very optimistic that the number of children experiencing stunting in NTT will decrease significantly in 2023," said Ruth Laiskodat.