JOHANNESBURG, Oct. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Vitamin and mineral deficiencies have caused loss of productivity to baffle economic development in Africa, international organizations said, urging governments to take actions such as fortifying staple foods.

    It is estimated that vitamin and mineral deficiencies are costing sub-Saharan economies more than 2.3 billion US dollars a year in lost productivity, said a report of the World Health Organization, the Macronutrient Initiative, the United Nations Children's Fund, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

    However, the agencies said the solution is tangible and cheap, according to Friday's newspaper Business Day.

    "Adding essential vitamins and minerals to foods regularly consumed by a significant proportion of the population can cost aslittle as a few cents per person per year," said the report released in Johannesburg on Thursday.

    In South Africa it is estimated that 37 percent of children under the age of five suffer iron deficiency, while 160,000 children are born each year with severe mental impairments and about 26 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 49 have iron-deficiency anemia.

    Meanwhile, 6,000 children under the age of six die each year due to lack of vitamin A, which depletes immune system.

    Micronutrient deficiency has many invisible economic effects for sapping the energy of working-age people, hurting the learningability of children and causing billions of dollars lost in productivity, said the report.

    The agencies urged Africa to improve dietary vitamin and mineral intake for babies, young children and women who are pregnant and breast-feeding, mainly through fortifying staple foods, supplementation and education.

    Many sub-Saharan countries made "remarkable" advances throughout the 1990s in providing vitamin A supplements and iodized salt. But more needs to be done and a major challenge is to maintain what has already been achieved, said the report.

    The New Partnership for Africa's Development NEPAD will launch a vitamin and mineral deficiency program in April next year, whichcould rapidly reduce the scale and severity of the problem and provide a major success story, said Macronutrient Initiative president Venkatesh Mannar. Enditem