June 2015

WASH members Dr Nawal Alhamad, Dr Elsayed Almalt and colleagues have published an overview of salt reduction activities in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.  Below is a summary of activities in Bahrain from this overview.

The Nutrition Section, Ministry of Health (MOH), is the main governmental body responsible for salt reduction. To establish baseline data on salt intake in the country, the Nutrition Section conducted spot urine analysis tests on 128 children and 64 adults, to find that average salt intake was 7.4g/day in children and 7.8g/day in adults. However due to the small sample size and the measurement technique used, these values can be considered inaccurate.

A study aimed to determine the salt concentration of bread, finding an average salt content of 9% (compared to the UK target of 1.13%). The Nutrition Section has planned to annually reduce the salt content of bread by 10%. Approximately 70% of the bread in Bahrain is produced by the Bahrain Flour Mills Company (BFMC), and they follow a standardised recipe. However there is no data on the amount of salt added to bread. Only calories and micronutrients are labelled on this bread.