Head of the Surabaya Health Office Nanik Sukristina said that in 2022, the national stunting prevalence stood at 21.6 percent and East Java at 19.2 percent.
"Meanwhile, Surabaya's (stunting) prevalence is the lowest among cities and districts across Indonesia, namely 4.8 percent," she informed here on Thursday.
According to her, Surabaya has managed to cut stunting prevalence significantly in just two years. In 2020, there were 12,788 under-five stunted children in the city, and by the end of 2022, their number dropped drastically to 923.
Based on SSGI data from the Ministry of Health, Surabaya's stunting prevalence fell sharply from 28.9 percent (6,722 under-five children) in 2021 to 4.8 percent (923 under-five children) in 2022.
Sukristina said that the reduction in stunting prevalence was inseparable from the hard work of several parties.
Head of the Women's Empowerment and Child Protection-Population Control and Family Planning Office (DP3A-PPKB) of Surabaya, Tomi Ardiyanto, affirmed that the achievement has not made the city government complacent.
He said that there are works that must be completed in 2023. The city government is not only trying to achieve zero cases of stunting, but also striving to prevent new cases.
"We carry out stunting handling (efforts) from upstream to downstream. Through the Stunting Reduction Acceleration Teams (TPPS) of Surabaya city, we formed several groups," he said.
Those groups include family assistance teams (TPKs), Ardiyanto added.
Meanwhile, head of the Regional Development Planning, Research, and Development Agency of Surabaya city, Febrina Kusumawati, said that the city government initially targeted to reduce the city's stunting prevalence to 7 percent based on the Regional Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMD).
The national target is to lower the stunting rate to 14 percent by 2024.
"Now, in Surabaya, it is already at 4.8 percent. It means we have already surpassed the target in the RPJMD and the national (target)," she highlighted.
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Translator: Abdul Hakim, Raka Adji
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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