The course dealt with food and nutrition problems facing poor countries with rapid economic and demographic transition. Its main focus was nutritional surveillance and epidemiology. Brucellosis is a bacterial infection, caught from farm animals and unpasteurized dairy products, that causes a feverish illness. The 16 Latin American participants attending the workshop exchanged the latest scientific information on the sickness and also had a chance to interact with their counterparts from Canada's Animal Disease Research Institute. From 8 to 10 October, the UNU held an international workshop on the control of iron deficiency.
Iron deficiency can cause anaemia.
Perhaps a third of all men and two-thirds of women in poor countries are anaemic. Their largely vegetarian diets often contain much less usable iron than meat does, and stomach parasites such as hookworms siphon off a lot of the iron that is consumed. Anaemia causes diminished mental and physical capacities. The workshop explored new ways of supplementing and distributing iron-enhanced food. And the UNU is offering two upcoming courses in November.