Infant and young child nutrition is a government priority in Brazil. During the administration of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, investments are being substantial for the improvement of the health and nutritional conditions of our children, especially those from the poorer families, as a means to reducing social and health inequalities.
 
Human milk is the best food for the early start in life. Creative solutions were applied in various projects and actions, which lead to an increase of the medium duration of breastfeeding from 7 months, in 1996, to approximately 10 months, in 1999. Successful examples are the mass media campaigns with voluntary participation of show business celebrities, the involvement of more than 6,000 postmen in delivering breastfeeding promotion messages to more than 1 million families, the enforcement of our laws protecting the right of working women to breastfeeding, all these leading to the massive social mobilization in favour of the child right to be breastfeed. We have already 184 baby-friendly hospitals and the world's greatest network of human milk banks. Also, Brazil was one of the first countries to formulate its own Code of Marketing of Breast-milk substitutes.

The Brazilian food industry was an important partner in both the formulation and recent update of the Code. Complementary feeding practices are being enhanced with the sound and culture-specific nutrition counselling of mothers of young children by more than 150,000 community health workers, working in the least developed areas of the country. For those children that, despite all these efforts, are malnourished, we invest more than U$100.000.000,00 a year in nutrition rehabilitation activities, including the combat of micronutrient malnutrition.
 
We took the leadership, at the WHA, to have a new resolution on infant and young child nutrition alarmed with the data presented by WHO that one-third of the under-fives in the world are still malnourished, that only a small proportion of the world's children are exclusively breastfed during the first years of life and that malnutrition still contributes to nearly half of the 10.5 million pre-school children deaths each year. Enough solid scientific and epidemiological evidence was already available and gathered on these issues. We wished the member states and WHO to discuss the matter and go for concrete action.

What is your opinion on the new Resolution?

It is certainly a landmark in the area of infant and young child nutrition as it sets new and fundamental grounds for action. For the first time, adequate food and nutrition is recognized as a fundamental human right. It calls for joint and co-operative action of all stakeholders in order to reach national and international consensus on strategies and policies to improve infant and young child nutrition. Also, it finally clarifies and ends the debate on the ideal duration for the exclusive breastfeeding and on the age of introduction of complementary feeding urging member states to strengthen activities to promote exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months as a public health recommendation.

How, in your opinion, does the Resolution clarify the situation for different parties?

As the Resolution ends the debate on the ideal duration of exclusive breastfeeding, with the sound support of a systematic review of the scientific literature, it opens up much more possibilities for co-operation between civil society, the commercial sector and governments, to establish new and innovative initiatives and approaches to improve infant and young child nutrition.

What will the Resolution add to child health?

It hopefully will enhance the commitment and the priority given by each member state and by WHO to the improvement of the health and nutritional conditions of young children.