Thanks to a global campaign by UNICEF and its partners (which include the Salt Institute) about 70% of households around the world are now receiving iodine through iodized salt, and 34 countries have universal salt iodization, according to a new UNICEF report, Sustainable Elimination of Iodine Deficiency ,issued June 26. As recently ago as two decades, only 20% of households were receiving sufficient levels of iodine.
In 1990, IDD was a public health problem affecting an estimated 2 billion people. Today, that number has been pared to about 400 million, half of them in India. Each year, 38 million children are born at risk of iodine deficiencies that can penalize them 10-15 IQ points in mental capacity.
