By: Rodrigo S. Victoria
NAVAL, Biliran – It’s not one, two or three but more citations have been reaped by the province of Biliran in terms of health performance for the past year.
This was revealed by Dr. Alfonso I. Veneracion, provincial health officer of the Biliran Provincial Health Office, during his radio appearance as guest in the regular radio program of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) dubbed “PIA Kapihan at Pulong-Pulong ng Bayan” at Radyo Natin-Naval on Thursday, January 3, 2013.
Veneracion disclosed that notable among the health citations was the big improvement of Biliran province in terms of nutritional status based on the latest survey results of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI).
Biliran was awarded in December 2012 by the regional office of the National Nutrition Council in Eastern Visayas as the Best Performing Province on Nutrition Program.
He said that based on the 2011 FNRI anthropometry survey on the prevalence of malnourished children aged 0-5 year old, Biliran registered 12.4 percent which is too low in comparison to the more than 30 percent prevalence of malnourished children before 2008.
Biliran also registered 31.2 percent in stunting and 3.3 percent in wasting and overweight for height based on the 2011 FNRI anthropometry survey on the prevalence of malnourished children aged 0-5 year old.
The provincial health officer of Biliran also divulged that the province reaped other health citations and these include national health citations as a rabies free-zone and filaria-free province.
“The province also ranks 5th in LGU scorecard by the Department of Health (DOH) among the provinces in the country” Veneracion said referring to the effective and efficient implementation of health programs in 2012.
He also gave credit to all the health workers in the province of Biliran for the various health citations reaped by the province in the past year. (PIA 8 Biliran)