REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PEKALONGAN -- Till September, as many as 32 children below the age of five in the Central Java city of Pekalongan were diagnosed with malnutrition, a health official said.

The children were found in four sub-districts in the city, the chief of the nutrition section at the Pekalongan city health office, Ismanto, revealed here on Saturday (25/10).

"Twelve of these 32 children have yet to recover from malnutrition and need treatment. Most of them are aged between two and four years," he stated.

Ismanto added that the children had also developed malnutrition-related ailments, such as lung and heart diseases.

"These children below the age of five years suffering from these diseases received less nutrition," he affirmed.

The health official further added that a year-on-year comparison showed that the number of malnutrition cases in the year till September increased by 18.

"To curb the rising number of malnutrition cases, we will try to encourage pregnant and breastfeeding women to breastfeed their infants unfailingly," he said.

The chief of the health section of children, youth and senior citizens at the city health office, Tri Nurtyasih, pointed out that working women often found it difficult to breastfeed their infants religiously due to limited time and a lack of breastfeeding rooms at their workplaces.

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