Iodine deficiency was eliminated a long time ago in the developed world through fortification of common foods such as milk and salt. In the developing world, however, iodine deficiency has been a major health problem until the last decade. Now, an offshoot of the United Nations General Assembly on Children — the Micronutrients Initiative — hopes to eliminate iodine deficiency worldwide by 2005.
While use of iodized salt is almost universal in developed countries, in many parts of the developing world is not so common. As recently as 1990, for example, only 20 percent of households used iodized salt.
This tends to result in iodine deficiency, which can lead to children having IQs 10 to 15 points lower than they otherwise would be. That poses a serious problem for countries already wracked by poverty and a lack of economic development.
Today, however, 70 percent of households in the developed world use iodized salt, and the Micronutrients Initiative hopes to make that all but universal by 2005.
Currently parts of Eastern Europe and India have relatively low rates of iodized salt use (in central and Eastern Europe, only about 25 percent of households use iodized salt). The Micronutrients Initiative will be concentrating on those regions to try to achieve the sorts of gains seen in China, which went from 50 percent of households using iodine to more than 95 percent today.
As UNICEF’s Werner Schultink told the BBC, “From start to finish, the global effort to eliminate iodine deficiency by universal salt iodination will have taken only 15 years to achieve, making it one of the most effective international public health campaigns in history.”
Source:
Iodine health campaign success. The BBC, May 11, 2002.