Iodine deficiency survey kicks off; 554 samples to be collected

Students will now have to bring a pinch of salt in their lunch boxes to be handed over a health team. The exercise is part of the Iodine Deficiency Disorder (IDD) Survey, which kicked off from Channan Devi Government School, Sabji Mandi, on Tuesday.

The survey is being initiated by district authorities to survey the iodine levels in children in the district.

As part of the exercise, over 2,700 schoolchildren between 6 and 12 years from over 30 areas in the district will be surveyed.

A school will be identified to represent each area: 74 children from that school and 90 children from the common population will be included in the survey. Urine samples of nine children from each area will be collected-this means a total of 270 urine samples will be taken.

Additionally, teams will also collect salt samples from 18 children-which means a total of 554 salt samples will be collected from them, which will then be taken to represent iodine levels of residents in the area.

The samples will be sent to a laboratory in Chandigarh for study. Children will also be checked for diseases such as goiter to determine identify iodine deficiency.

Civil Surgeon Dr Subhash Batta has constituted three teams under Dr Anil Verma, Dr Gurmeet Singh and Dr Manisha Khanna. Each team will have two doctors, one multipurpose health supervisor and one lady health visitor.

Taranjeet Kaur and Dr Deepak Sharma from PGIMER Chandigarh also came for the launch of the survey.
District epidemiologist Dr Anil Verma, who heads one team, said, “This special survey is a part of National Iodine Deficiency Disorder Control Programme, being conducted for the first time. Cases of iodine deficiency will be followed up under the school health programme.”

Dr Verma said that aim of the survey is to ensure that there is no deficiency of iodine in children.

“This would also help medical teams make people aware of why they must use of iodised salt. Methods of proper preservation of the salt will also be communicated to traders and common people,” he said.