The 5th African Nutrition and Epidemiology Congress (ANEC V) was held in South Africa at the University of Free State in Bloemfontein from October 1-4. The Congress was jointly organized by the African Nutrition Society (ANS), the Nutrition Society of South Africa (NSSA) and the Association for Dietetics in South Africa (ADSA). ANEC V was an opportunity to gather nearly 1500 delegates from universities, industries, UN agencies, and representative of NGO’s from Africa and all over the world. The theme of the congress was “Transforming the nutrition landscape in Africa”.
More than 175 plenary or parallel sessions lectures were provided. Nearly 240 posters were displayed. Interestingly, all the fields of human nutrition were covered: from hunger and food insecurity to micronutrients deficiencies, metabolic diseases, maternal and child health, and genetic patterns in human nutrition.
Professor Anna Lartey during the opening session exposed the situation of Nutrition in Africa and urged all the stakeholders to double the efforts needed to empower for a better nutritional future in Africa. The congress pointed the success in fighting micronutrient deficiencies in Africa with positive results regarding especially iodine deficiency disorders and vitamin A and iron deficiencies. In, many African countries, iron, vitamin A and iodine deficiencies have subsequently decreased. The success is supported by the supplementation of vulnerable groups especially lactating women and by the fortification of staple foods in micronutrients. For example in South Africa, there is virtually no goiter observed since the implementation of the salt iodization. However, some delegates brought innovative and local research results with enormous success in the fight against micronutrient deficiencies. The use of phytases or some local plants and seeds significantly reduced deficiencies in many African countries. For example in Kenya, a study pointed out that when culturally accepted, the consumption of bovine blood reduced the anemia in school-age children.
While on the continent visible and hidden hunger are decreasing, African countries are experiencing a nutrition transition, exhibiting an increasing of non communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and respiratory symptoms. Salt has been suspected to promote hypertension and some debates at the congress concerned the level of iodine and the international recommendation of salt consumption. Participants also described the evolution of non communicable diseases in Africa and called for a quick and early response to the situation. More research is needed to understand the trends of diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases and strokes in Africa.
Jane Badham during her plenary speech urged African countries to join the “Scaling Up Nutrition” SUN movement and to put on a higher level nutrition in the development programs. In order to convince government, the process of joining the SUN movement was explained.
Regarding the communicable diseases, AIDS/HIV still threatening millions of people on the continent and a good nutrition should be combined to the effort of the ARVs to improve their efficiency. At a parallel session dedicated to HIV and infections, recommendations were
made to bring nutritional support and advices to patients especially when they develop specific symptoms such as diarrhea and weakness.
Finally, there were discussions regarding ethics in Nutrition. The issue turned around the registration of dialecticians and nutritionist of a country in order to support them. However Magda Slabbert explained that registration should be an initiative of nutritionists and they should not been obliged.
As a complement to the congress, master classes were offered as trainings to excel in Sports Nutrition, How to evaluate a scientific publication, Nutritional therapy of renal diseases, Nutrigenomics, Health promoting schools, Dietary methodology, Food security and the Training on the management of severe / acute malnutrition.
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