Nutritional assessment of adolescent refugees--Nepal, 1999.

During 1990-1993, 83,000 ethnic Nepalese fled from Bhutan to refugee camps in southeast Nepal after new citizenship policies were enacted by the Bhutanese government. Although annual nutrition surveys of children aged <5 years had been conducted by international agencies, no anthropometric assessment of adolescents had been performed since the refugees arrived in 1990. After withdrawal of a fortified cereal from their rations, the number of reported cases of angular stomatitis (AS) (i.e., thinning and/or fissuring at the angles of the mouth, a sign of possible vitamin deficiency) increased six-fold during December 1998-March 1999 (from 5.5 to 35.6 cases per 1000 refugees) (Santa Tamang, MD, Save the Children Fund, United Kingdom, personal communication, 1999). The highest rates of AS were found among children and adolescents. In October 1999, CDC was invited by the World Food Programme and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to assess the health status of adolescent refugees. This report summarizes the investigation, which indicated a high prevalence of low body mass index (BMI), anemia, low vitamin A status, and signs of micronutrient deficiencies among adolescent refugees.