[Nutrition intervention actions in relief situations: report on 4 experiences in Mexico]

In the last years Mexico faced several natural and human provoked disasters. We choose the Mexico City earthquake, the Chichonal volcano eruption, the Guatemala war and its refugees and the Chiapas armed movement. In all of them the INCMNSZ surveillance system proposal has been applied. To establish the intervention we classified the emergencies according to its magnitude and localization. The intervention consisted in: immediate attention of serious cases, immunizations, quimioprofilaxis, personal hygiene, environment control, nutritional assessment and diet definition. The affected population attended were: in the eruption 4.500, in the earthquake 1.000, in the Guatemala war 19.000 and in the Chiapas movement 6.940. Population damaged by the eruption and the war received mass feeding; complementary feeding (vulnerable groups) and therapeutic feeding (people with tuberculosis and serious undernutrition). In the earthquake people received first, prepared food and later they were organized to bring, plan, prepare and distribute their food. In the Chiapas armed movement people received only special baby food. In all cases, population also receive nutritional information and only with the refugees and the Chiapas damaged people the local food production was promoted. We suggest evaluating every emergency program and share experiences to afford this type of situations in a better way.