For the next 8 months, I have been asked to work on three projects with the Community Health Sciences Department in AKU Karachi. The people I am working with are absolutely amazing! They are goal-orientated, ridiculously intelligent but most importantly, they are really friendly.
I wish to share with you one of the projects.

AKU has partnered with The Global Network for Women's and Children's Health Research (GN) to investigate the issues associated with child morbidity and mortality. GN was conceived in 2001 as a private-public partnership between the U.S National Institute of Health and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This partnership was made in response to alarming rates of infant morbidity and mortality in developing countries. "Its mission is to expand scientific knowledge, develop research infrastructures and improve health outcomes by building research partnerships to conduct research on feasible, cost-effective, sustainable interventions to address the major causes of perinatal morbidity and mortality of women and children in the developing world." (http://www.aku.edu/CHS/gn-index.shtml)

Evidence from research shows that 10 million deaths occur each year amongst children 5 years of age or less. These deaths are mainly preventable with their root cause being malnutrition. Lack of proper nutrition leads to poor health outcomes due to inadequate intake of essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Micronutrient deficiency (especially Zinc, Iron and Vitamin B complex) impairs normal child growth and development and neurocognitive function. Additionally, the child is exposed to numerous infectious diseases. It is known that the first 18 months of a child's life is critical. Anything that happens in this time period will affect the child when he/she grows up. Therefore, any improvements in a child's nutritional status needs to made STAT! Now many campaigns have been launched to fortify local food sources with micronutrients but this is not feasible. This does not even reach the poor and if it did, they cannot even afford it. Sustainability of this initiative is questioned.

The principle hypothesis that is being tested in this study is that daily feeding of meat from 6-18 months of age, in addition to educational messages on optimal complementary feeding and exclusive breastfeeding, will result in significantly greater linear growth velocity compared to that achieved by daily feeding of an equi-caloric micronutrient fortified cereal supplement. The secondary hypothesis is that daily feeding of meat will result in improved zinc and iron intakes and status, improved brain growth and neuro-cognitive development, and reduced infectious disease morbidity. 10 out of 18 towns in Karachi have been chosen. Since each town is made of up to 25 villages, one village out of each town has been randomly chosen. The intervention group is the meat group and the control group is the cereal group. 5 villages are receiving the meat and 5 receiving the cereal. Both the meat and the cereal is being cooked, prepared, packaged and supplied by a US, federally approved, company.

Now this study is great! Its a first of its kind in Karachi. Another interesting fact, this study is also being conducted in Guatemala, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia.

Researchers of this study hope that once the results are revealed, the government will make changes to the current health policies on child complementary feeding. But will the government be accountable for this? will the government provide the necessary funding? Even if a heightened sense of awareness is achieved from this study, what then?

We could teach local farmers to grow local meat sources such as chicken and consume their meat. But not all are farmers. Also, where will we get the land for grazing animal herd? If we do have the land, what about affordability of these lands? Who will teach these people how to grow local meat sources? Will there be help from NGOs or other sources of international aid?