The Iodine Blog March 2023 The WHO Executive Board Session discusses the proposed WHA resolution Over 50 global nutrition and health organizations have worked together to support the resolution “Accelerating efforts ...
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The Iodine Blog - Archive
Blog Posts Archive
March 2023
December 2022
The Iodine Blog December 2022 As the year draws to a close, we at IGN would like to thank our partners, donors, and all of those who helped to sustain and improve iodine nutrition in 2022.
We end the year with some ...
November 2022
Giving Tuesday Blog November 2022 At this time of the year, we at IGN reflect on how lucky we are to have your support for our work of promoting and sustaining adequate iodine nutrition. We’re also grateful because, in...
October 2022
Blog for World Iodine Deficiency Prevention Day, October 21The blog for World Iodine Deficiency Prevention Day comes to us all the way from the Maras district, Urubamba, in the Cusco region of Peru, where Maras salt, the...
October 2022 Woman with goiter in Frienisberg, 1921.
Picture: Institute for the History of Medicine at the University of Bern, archive (Coll. Lenggenhager, BDR 165) One of two big anniversaries for salt iodization is...
September 2022
September 2022 Salt collection in Phetchaburi, Thailand In May 2017, partners in the global effort to eliminate iodine deficiency, including WHO, IGN, GAIN, ETH and the Effective Altruism movement in Geneva, took part in an...
July 2022
July 2022 Spreading the word about iodine nutrition and distributing iodine capsules in remote areas of Papua New Guinea. Salt is an ideal vehicle for fortification because it’s almost universally consumed. But it...
June 2022
June 2022The news last month that the World Bank would provide an additional US12 billion for new projects to promote global resilience in response to the ongoing food security crisis made a lot of sense to IGN. Our...
April 2022
April 2022 300 meters below the surface in the salt mine in Donetsk, Ukraine The news this week about the potential global malnutrition impacts of war in Ukraine, together with the climate crisis we already face and the...
March 2022
March 2022 Here’s something about iodine nutrition we hoped we would never need to tell you
At IGN, we focus on the importance of protecting children’s developing brains by ensuring adequate iodine status,...
February 2022
February 2022 Photo credit: UNICEF The public health success of the global effort to eliminate iodine deficiency disorders, protecting the brains of hundreds of millions of children around the world, has been a unique...
January 2022
January 2022 Most people consume 9 12g (about 2 teaspoons) of salt per day. That’s more than twice the daily intake recommended by the World Health Organization. Reducing salt in the diet can help reduce blood p...
November 2021
November 2021 In a small school, children in Laos have brought their household salt samples to test for iodine content. This helps raise awareness of the problem and the importance of using iodized salt. Photo credit: UNICEF...
November 2021 One of the most important parts of the work we do at IGN is to keep track of whether people around the world have adequate iodine in their diets. We do this in a couple of ways. We continually monitor the use ...
October 2021
October 2021 Today is Global IDD Prevention Day, celebrated each year to raise awareness of the problem of iodine deficiency and its effect on children’s brain development, their school performance, and earning...
August 2021
August 2021 The fight to protect children’s brains by adding iodine to household salt has been a global public health success story. This success has led many to believe that the job of iodizing salt has been dealt ...
June 2021
June 2021 Estimates suggest that up to 50% of infants in Europe are at risk of being iodine deficient.
The role of Regional Coordinator is crucial to IGN’s work. Nowhere is that more true than in Europe, which...
March 2021
March 2021 The work of making sure that salt is iodized forever is continuous, and while face to face meetings are off limits in most countries, virtual progress is uplifting. Last month, IGN, together with UNICEF, developed...
March 2021 We are pleased to announce the appointment of Amal Tucker Brown as our new Regional Coordinator for West and Central Africa. Amal is a public health nutritionist from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical...
March 2021 The success of salt iodization as a public health intervention has led to the exploration of its potential to carry additional nutrients to address critical vitamin and mineral deficiencies, in particular iron. A...
February 2021
March 2021 We would like to thank the Giselle Foundation for joining the list of IGN supporters, and to acknowledge the contributions of all of our donors. Special thanks to a young Canadian donor who told us: “I'm an...
January 2021
January 2021 We hope you’ll spread the word and join us tomorrow, Wednesday, 27 January from 14.00 – 15.30 CET for a #FutureFortified webinar, “Reaching the Most Vulnerable with Fortified Foods.” It...
December 2020
December 2020 As 2020 winds to a close, all of us at IGN send Season's Greetings and wish you the very best for 2021.
We thank you for your support and hope you are all safe, happy and well.
We'd like to share these...
October 2020
October 2020 There are many ways in which production of salt can be adversely impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic, from disruptions in availability of supplies needed to process it, to the labour needed to manufacture and...
October 2020 After a career of some 53 years, IGN’s Regional Coordinator for Western and Central Europe will give up all of his many activities in thyroid and iodine at the end of 2020. In addition to his work with I...
October 2020 Welcome to our new board members, Dr. Mary L'Abbé, Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Toronto; Penjani Mkambula, Global Program Lead for Food Fortification at the Global Alliance for Improved...
October 2020 IGN was one of a number of contributors to an important brief on food fortification and COVID 19 issued in September. The brief recommends that actions to strengthen fortification programs be prioritized as part...
October 2020 WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has praised The Lancet's GBD study as a great example of collaboration to improve people's health and lives. The Lancet argues that health is created from a...
August 2020
August 2020 IGN and its partners believe in a world where people have access to nutritious food, including the iodine in their diet that allows children to reach their full cognitive potential. The profound health and...
August 2020 This month, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization released its 2020 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. The report’s major focus was on the need to transform food systems for...
August 2020 Gregory working an IDD assessment in Turkmenistan in 1994. Gregory Gerasimov began his career as an endocrinologist in Moscow, where he was awarded an MD, PhD and Doctor of Medical science at Moscow Medical...
May 2020
May 2020 Dr. Izzeldin Sharief Hussein, Regional Coordinator in the Middle East and North AfricaA Global Public Health Practitioner with a medical background, Dr. Izzeldin Sharief Hussein is currently the Regional Coordinator...
May 2020
By Karen Codling During this unprecedented COVID 19 crisis, representatives from several international non governmental organizations (NGOs) and UNICEF working on food fortification in the Asia region highlighted...
How to improve iodine intakes in communities that don’t have salt. May 2020
By Karen Codling and Victor Temple For all that has been achieved in the fight against iodine deficiency around the world, there still exist...
May 2020 Mr. Wilfred K.M. Kimiri has been a champion for salt iodization in Kenya for nearly 20 years. Starting at Kensalt as an accountant in 1999, and eventually becoming General Manager, Mr. Kimiri developed an interest ...
May 2020 Beginning in November 2019, IGN has hosted seven webinars on the “UNICEF Guidance on the Monitoring of Salt Iodization Programmes and Determination of Population Iodine Status.” The purpose of the...
March 2020
March 2020 Located in the Himalayan Mountain range, where iodine deficiency has long been endemic, Nepal was one of the first countries in the South Asia to recognize the magnitude of the problem and develop a comprehensive...
March, 2020 Mexico has a long history in combating iodine deficiency in its population, dating back to the 1940s. Although there were initial efforts to establish salt iodization activities over the subsequent decades to...
March, 2020 In November 2019, UNICEF, in partnership with IGN, NI, WHO and GAIN and with the support of the Kenyan Government, jointly supported a regional consultation on the sustainable prevention and control of iodine...
March 2020 Dr. Festo Kavishe, Regional Coordinator for Eastern & Southern AfricaHow long have you been with IGN, and what is your role?
I have been with IGN for three years, since 2017, as Regional Coordinator for Eastern...
December 2019
December, 2019 IGN: Dr. Pandav, why do you feel so passionately about Universal Salt Iodization?
CP: Iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) constitute the single largest cause of preventable brain damage worldwide. The...
October 2019
October, 2019 The Asia Oceania Thyroid Association urges universal salt iodization across the region, a potent advocacy tool to prevent birth defects due to iodine deficiency.
The Asia Oceania Thyroid Association has...
July 2019
July, 2019
by Elizabeth Pearce In the first trimester, and at least three months prior to conception, pregnant women should consume 150 µg of iodine a day.
Pregnant women with healthy iodine nutrition during the first...
July, 2019 Hidden hunger – the common term for vitamin and mineral deficiency – can be an insidious form of malnutrition because it is less visible than other forms, such as wasting. And yet, not only does this...
May 2019
May, 2019
by Marie Claude Désilets, Minoru Irie, Festo Kavishe and Isiye Ndombi Through strategic partnership, we can protect newborns from Madagascar from preventable brain damage due to iodine deficiency. In Morondava,...
February 2019
February, 2019 Data visualization tool identifies opportunities to reach 2 billion affected by hidden hunger.ATLANTA, Ga.; GENEVA; SEATTLE, Wash.; WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 28, 2019 – Two thirds of all countries mandate...
February, 2019
by Gregory Gerasimov After years of intensive public health campaigning, a proposed bill would address iodine deficiency. In what would be a victory decades in the making, Russian lawmakers may enact a...
February, 2019 It is #SaltAwarenessWeek 2019!
With the popularity of sea salt and other culinary salt on the rise, let’s dispel some myths.Sea salt and specialty culinary salts, such as Pink Himalayan Salt, are...
January 2019
January, 2019
by Jonathan Gorstein (IGN), Felix Brooks Church (Sanku PHC), Laura Rowe (FFI), and Penjani Mkambula (GAIN) Working in close collaboration, our organizations are tackling the problem of hidden hunger. We are...
December 2018
December, 2018 Under the academic guidance of Prof. Margaret Rayman and Dr. Sarah Bath, three students at the University of Surrey (UK) recently cooked up a storm with a new evidence based cookbook of iodine rich recipes. We...
December, 2018
by Borislav Karanfilski and Neda Milevska Kostova In the 1990s, the Macedonian population was found to be iodine deficient, and many were at risk from iodine deficiency disorders. Fortunately, the ...
November 2018
November, 2018 Actionable data for food fortification is available on the Global Fortification Data Exchange, now in English y en español!
Estos datos se encuentran tanto en inglés como en castellano. GFDx is an ...
October 2018
October, 2018 Highlights from the 21st National Day of Mobilization for the Fight against IDD. In Benin, government leaders and nutrition experts held a gathering to raise awareness in the community for iodine deficiency...
October, 2018 Following the recent news that the UK will add folic acid to flour to prevent birth defects, we sent this urgent letter to the UK government via The Guardian, urging them to add iodine to salt.
October, 2018 How Tata Salt urged the nation to pay attention to iodine nutrition on Global Iodine Deficiency Disorders Prevention Day 2018.
In India, our partners at Tata Salt captured the attention of the media and the...
October, 2018 Global Fortification Data Exchange (GFDx) holds workshops across the globe to apply empathy mapping and journey mapping to navigate data system transformation. The Global Fortification Data Exchange (GFDx) held...
September 2018
September, 2018 by Festo Kavishe and Vincent Assey Based on the first survey in Burundi in more than a decade, the salt iodization program is failing to impact women of reproductive age and protect newborns from mental...
June 2018
June, 2018 IGN highlights from the World Salt Symposium 2018
by Jonathan Gorstein Universal Salt Iodization now reaches 86% of the population in low and middle income countries, protecting millions of newborns from...
June, 2018 Universal salt iodization programs, implemented in countries around the world for more than two decades, have led to remarkable progress towards achievement of optimal iodine intake and the prevention of iodine...
May 2018
May, 2018 On May 15, China celebrated National IDD Prevention Day. This year’s celebration was particularly notable, since it has been 25 years since China established its national IDD elimination program. This...
May, 2018 In 2017, the Iodine Global Network collaborated on a poetry anthology which brought together the realms of poetry and science. After a successful launch last year, we’re catching up with its editor Callan...
May, 2018 The Iodine Global Network, with support from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and UNICEF, is conducting the first ever survey of iodine nutrition in nine Caribbean countries.
Dubbed the 'Caribbean...
April 2018
April, 2018 by Dr. Maria Andersson The recently published SIMPLIFY study shows that iodized salt, when it's universally available, provides sufficient iodine to meet the dietary needs of pregnant and breastfeeding women, and...
April, 2018 On 18th April, European scientists investigating IDD as part of the EUthyroid project met in Poland to sign the 'Kraków Declaration on Iodine.'
It is hoped that a pan European declaration will draw attention...
April, 2018 The Global Fortification Data Exchange (GFDx) is seeking fortification stakeholders interested in improving the use of fortification data to guide their national program decisions.
All expressions of interest...
March 2018
March, 2018 The IGN and UNICEF supported a nationwide survey of iodine status and iodized salt to find out if women in Burundi are iodine deficient.
The first national survey of iodine nutrition in over a decade is...
February 2018
February, 2018 The IGN is the proud winner of an annual ‘Giving Game’ hosted jointly by Giving What We Can and Students for Global Health at the University of Sheffield, UK.
On February 15, 2018, the Iodine...
February, 2018 The IGN with support from UNICEF held a regional workshop on strengthening monitoring systems in countries of South Eastern Europe and Central Asia on February 20, 2018 in Tbilisi, Georgia. As well as...
February, 2018 by Dr. Gregory Gerasimov Georgia has sustained more than a decade of optimal iodine nutrition, according to exciting new results from a national survey of school age children and pregnant women conducted by...
February, 2018 Sudan’s first salt iodization plant marks a milestone toward eliminating iodine deficiency.
On February 7th, Sudan opened its first of three new salt iodization plants at the Shafie Factory, in Port...
February, 2018 by Vu Thi Thu Ha , Phuong Do Hong , and Karen Codling Civil society organizations and the scientific community in Vietnam advocate for mandatory salt iodization and its use in processed food. Vietnam passed ...
January 2018
January, 2018 by Jonathan Gorstein At the start of 2018, we remain on track toward the goal of eliminating iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) in all countries by 2020. When it finally happens, it will be an outcome of the...
January, 2018 by Karen Codling National stakeholders in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) devise a new strategy to eliminate IDD through the production of adequately iodized salt, with technical support...
December 2017
December, 2017 See also:
Opinion: Fighting hidden hunger with data
Published on 14 September, 2017. Written jointly by members of the GFDx Core Group. The coalition group that launched the Global Fortification Data...
November 2017
November, 2017 by Festo Kavishe and Vincent Assey In Eastern & Southern Africa, countries are putting national nutrition on the agenda as an investment in economic prosperity. Universal Salt Iodization is in the vanguard....
November, 2017 by Nicholas Hutchings and Gregory Gerasimov Thanks to Universal Salt Iodization, Armenia has recovered from historic iodine deficiency to sustain ten years of healthy iodine nutrition. The medical and public...
October 2017
October, 2017 See also: In industrialized countries including the U.S., U.K., and Canada, dairy is a primary source of iodine, and those who are dairy free may be at risk of deficiency of this essential nutrient. If you ...
October, 2017 Highlights from a scientific symposium devoted to iodine nutrition in Europe See also: In Europe, signs and symptoms of what we now recognize as iodine deficiency have been recorded in art and literature for...
September 2017
September, 2017 by the GFDx Core Group See also:
Opinion: Fighting hidden hunger with data
Published on 14 September, 2017. Written jointly by members of the GFDx Core Group. With our partners the Food Fortification...
August 2017
August, 2017 See also: Iodine intakes are borderline adequate in war torn Yemen Protecting children from brain damage due to iodine deficiency is possible in war torn Yemen, with a strengthened salt iodization program. The...
July 2017
July, 2017 See also: Iodine rich groundwater, and not iodized salt, provides children and pregnant women in Djibouti with sufficient iodine A new water source will disrupt Djibouti’s source of iodine. IGN is working...
June 2017
June, 2017 by Gregory Gerasimov IGN Regional Coordinator for Eastern Europe & Central Asia Following a successful nationwide public health campaign, iodine nutrition in Russia has been on the lips of the national media,...
May 2017
May, 2017 by Jonathan Gorstein IGN Executive Director
2016 was truly a landmark year for IGN, our partners, and the global effort to eliminate iodine deficiency. We have conducted a remarkable breadth of work throughout ...
February 2017
February, 2017 The Iodine Global Network mourns the loss of Dr Basil Hetzel, world renowned epidemiologist, and founding father of the International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (ICCIDD, now the...
January 2017
AllCharities was founded in London by a group of Swiss university students to engage with celebrities and their fans, to raise funds for great charities, and see social change. Like us, they believe that if everyone would...
October 2016
19 20 October 2016, China UNICEF emphasizes the importance of maintaining universal availability of iodised salt to protect China’s pregnant women and children against Iodine Deficiency Disorders Without the right...
13 14 October 2016 The participant details and country posters can be found here.On October 13 14, 2016, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, IGN and UNICEF held a consultative workshop for multi sector country teams from ...
6 October 2016 See also: On October 6, 2016, a nationwide campaign to promote iodized salt and prevent IDD was launched in Russia. The campaign is the erfort of the Russian Endocrinology Association and medical student...
September 2016
3 September 2016
On Saturday 3rd September, the Iodine Global Network (Western and Central Europe) and EUthyroid held a joint satellite meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, organized as a pre conference event of the 39th annual...
March 2016
17 March 2016, London On 17 March 2016, the Iodine Global Network held a Symposium on Iodine and Pregnancy for health professionals, at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, London, UK
Recent studies have...
October 2015
12 14 October 2015 In October, the Iodine Global Network held a Regional Workshop on “Achieving universal salt iodization for optimal iodine nutrition” in Bangkok, Thailand. The three day event was organized...
September 2015
24 25 September 2015 On September 24 25, 2015, the IGN and UNICEF held a consultative workshop for countries in the CEE/CIS (Central and Eastern Europe/ Commonwealth of Independent States) Region on "Sustainable prevention ...
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