Kathmandu. The government has implemented the Act on the Production and Sale and Distribution of Iodized Salt. The Act, which was enacted in 2055 BS, has come into effect after 26 years.
The Act came into effect after the proposal submitted by Health and Population Minister Pradeep Poudel was passed in the Cabinet meeting on Baisakh 20. With the implementation of the Act, the Ministry of Health has opened the legal path to move forward with work on solving the health problems caused by excessive iodine found in children in previous research.
The notice of the issuance of the Act was published in the Gazette on Magh 1, 2055 BS and it was stated that it would come into effect from the specified date by publishing a notification in the Gazette. Since then, the governments have not published a notification in the Gazette for implementation, the Act has not been legally implemented. Due to which, regulations and guidelines could not be formulated for the implementation and regulation of the Act. Now, after two and a half decades, the legal path has been opened for the ministry to take forward the work related to this.
Tuesday’s cabinet meeting decided to publish a notice in the gazette with effect from 1st July. With this, the act will finally be implemented after 26 years. Lila Bikram Thapa, head of the nutrition section under the Health Services Department of the Ministry of Health, said that a research conducted by the ministry a decade ago showed that children in Nepal had serious health problems due to the availability of more iodine than required due to the standards set in the past.
In a micronutrient analysis survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and Population in 2016, 314 micrograms of iodine per liter was found in the urine of children aged 6 to 9 years, compared to the required 300 micrograms per liter. Doctors say that due to this, problems including high blood pressure and thyroid are seen.
Although it has been put into practice, the notification of the commencement of the act and the details including the area have not been published in the gazette, which has hindered the creation of regulations and guidelines to solve health problems, informed the ministry’s spokesperson Dr. Prakash Budhathoki. “Now, it will be easier for the ministries of health, agriculture and prosperity to work together to revise standards or do other necessary work,” he said.
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