Luthfiana Mahmudah, Jember – Every month at the Jember administration-owned RSUD Dr. Soebandi Hospital, at least four children under five years old are treated for malnutrition, a health official said Tuesday.

Public relations officer Judi Nugroho said, as of the first week of this month, the hospital had treated at least 40 children suffering from malnutrition.

"Of them, 23 were suffering from marasmus and the rest, 17, from kwashiorkor (acute protein defficiency)," Judi said.

Among the children being treated is Ahmad Fauzi, 2, whose weight is only six kilograms; the normal weight for a child of his age is 12 kilograms.

"He has been like this for about a month," said Sana, his mother, Monday, as she lay down beside her ailing son. Sana said she only brought Fauzi to the community health center (Puskesmas) on Saturday, after a councilor came to her house and "forced" her to do so. "We didn't dare do so before because we didn't have enough money," she said.

Her husband, Miskari, she said, was just an agricultural worker whose income fluctuated. During planting or harvest time he could earn Rp 10,000 a day but out of season he earned nothing, regardless of the fact he had a wife and two children to support. Ironically, the family was not on the list of families eligible to receive government-paid health insurance (Jamkesmas) so they could get free medical treatment.

Poverty has been blamed for the high number of malnutrition cases in Jember regency. It was because of poverty that Fauzi never got enough breast milk from his malnourished mother and had to be fed with rice since he was a newborn, making him even more vulnerable to malnutrition.

According to data from the Jember Health Agency, at least 33,060 babies are vulnerable to malnutrition. Early solid food feeding has been blamed for the condition. The agency's public relations officer Yumarlis said out of the 38,000 babies born annually in Jember, only 13 percent had been fed exclusively on breast milk during their early months.

"This means 87 percent of the newborn babies were given additional food which made them vulnerable to malnutrition," Yumarlis said Tuesday.

Jember recorded 286 children under five years of age suffering from malnutrition in 2007 and 103 the following year. As of the first week of this month, the agency has recorded 74 cases of malnutrition, two of whom have died and 45 others are still being monitored by the agency.

"We have to monitor them for 90 days and provide them with additional nutrition and Vitamin A," Yumarlis said.