Salt iodisation proceeding well

Although iodine deficiency remains a problem among the population of Turkmenistan, remarkable developments have been made over recent years on the way to universal salt iodisation. "Iodine deficiency is one of the problems among the population here and the best way to resolve it is to mix iodine with salt," Mahboob Shareef, head of the UNICEF mission in Turkmenistan, told IRIN in the capital, Ashgabat. While there are no statistics available regarding the level of iodine deficiency disorders in the energy-rich country, conditions prove that there is a lack of iodine, Shareef added. "Iodine deficiency is very prevalent, like looking at goitre, which is a visible impact of iodine deficiency among women. Children born with cretinism is also another indication. And then the intellectual level of children is another way [of telling]," he said. In an effort to tackle the issue, the Turkmen government issued a decree on fortifying salt with iodine. "The government has a very good distribution network to distribute it [iodised salt] up to the family level and that has been done. And another achievement is that government also issued a decree that the salt would be given free of charge to the entire population up to 2020," Shareef said. Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov signed this decree on providing the population with free salt - 10 kg per person a year. Iodised salt can easily be obtained in government-run or private shops. One kg of iodised salt costs a little less than 10 US cents, calculated at the black market exchange rate, or 45 US cents at the official rate. Murat, a resident of Ashgabat, told IRIN that though officially salt was given out free, one needed a number of documents for it. "I just don't want to waste my time getting all that paperwork done. I would be better buying it in a shop around the corner," he said. In Turkmenistan, salt is produced by a single national producer, the Guvlyduz plant on the Caspian coast in the western Turkmen province of Balkan. According to a recent report by Gregory Gerasimov, a UNICEF consultant, the importing of salt for human consumption was negligible. The production capacity of the Guvlyduz plant allows the production of up to 70-80 thousand tons of iodised food salt per year. Actual demand (and production) of edible salt for Turkmenistan's population is some 30,000 tons, the report added. Both salt and iodine are locally produced, Dilara Ayazova, a micronutrients project assistant for UNICEF, told IRIN in Ashgabat. "They do not need to import iodine, which is the case in many countries," Shareef concurred. Potassium iodate produced at the Cheleken chemical plant in the west of the country is used for fortifying salt. "It is a matter of political will to mix these and distribute it. Political will was achieved; that was very significant," he noted. However, although the government had been distributing iodised salt over the past years, the iodine content in the salt was insufficient to achieve the universal salt iodisation target and eventually to achieve the elimination of iodine deficiency disorders, Shareef said. This being the case, UNICEF placed the issue on the government's agenda which subsequently agreed, in 2003, to increase the iodine content in the salt. "So it is now according to the international standards and that was done in 2003," the UNICEF head of mission said. In recent months UNICEF has carried out urine testing assessments and this has proved that more than 80 percent of the population had a sufficient level of iodine in their bodies. "This is going in the right direction," Shareef pointed out. The government has also issued a decree to ban any non-iodised salt from entering the country. "That system is in place and there is a good monitoring system for ensuring that all salt in the country is iodised. That has been done," Shareef stressed. With such progress, UNICEF and the government are hoping that Turkmenistan could be the first country among the five Central Asian states to achieve universal salt iodisation. This will have to go through the verification process. A committee comprising UNICEF and the WHO is expected to come to Turkmenistan in June to inspect progress and certify whether Turkmenistan has come to a state of declaring the achievement of universal salt iodisation. "Now the situation is that at least 95 percent of the families have access to iodine and on a regular basis. Hopefully, the iodine deficiency will gradually go down," Shareef said. Commenting on other impacts of the iodisation, Shareef said that the government now saw the values of fortifying food items with certain important components. "We are working with the government for the fortification of wheat with iron. We are also talking about the fortification of some food items with vitamin A. It could be sugar or something else. The government is learning how to fortify food with certain micronutrients so that it goes to every family of the country. And the experience of universal salt iodisation can be applied to other micronutrient components, which is very important," he said.