Folate Status of Women and Children in Africa – Current Situation and Improvement Strategies

ABSTRACT

This work reviewed the maternal and child folate status and the strategies used to tackle health disorders related to folate deficiencies in Africa. Published surveys conducted between 2005 and 2018 were considered. Criteria for establishing folate deficiency are variable (folate intake or serum folate concentrations). Folate deficiencies were frequent among the 11 countries with available data, prevalence of folate adequacy was very low and coverage of strategies used to fight deficiencies is limited. To overcome folate deficiencies, fortification of staple foods is an option, but finding ways to make new folate-rich food available for the poorest is a must.

KEYWORDS:

• Africa
• children
• developing countries
• folic acid
• folate deficiency
• folate insufficiency
• malnutrition
• strategies
• women

Acknowledgments

This work was carried out in the framework of the FolEA project, which is part of the ERA-Net «Developing African-European joint collaboration for Science and Technology» (ERAfrica), financially supported by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme. Fabrice Bationo acknowledges a grant from the French Embassy in Burkina Faso and from the Institute of Research for Development.

All authors have made substantial contributions. FB contributed significantly to the work‘s design, review of literature, interpretation of findings and write-up of the manuscript; LTSO, FHB, CP, HLS, and BD contributed significantly to the review of literature, and critically reviewed the article; YMH, KB, and CH contributed significantly to the work‘s design and interpretation of findings, and critically reviewed the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript being submitted.

Conflict of interest

The authors confirmed no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Seventh Framework Programme [ERAfrica-grant agreement: 266603].