UN Advocates Urgent Action To Fight Acute Malnutrition
The United Nations agencies have called for urgent action to protect the most vulnerable Children in 15 Countries, hardest hit by an unprecedented food and nutrition crisis.
The call was made in a statement issued by five UN agencies which are; the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organisation (WHO).
The UN had listed some countries that are hardest hit by unprecedented food and nutrition crisis.
According to the statement, conflict, climate shocks, the ongoing impacts of Covid-19 and rising costs of living are leaving increasing numbers of children acutely malnourished.
It said; “This is happening when key health nutrition and other life-saving services are becoming less accessible.
“Currently, more than 30 million children in the 15 worst-affected countries suffer from wasting or acute malnutrition and eight million of these children are severely wasted, the deadliest form of under nutrition.
“This is a major threat to children’s lives and to their long-term health and development, the impacts of which are felt by individuals, their communities and their countries.”
The UN Agencies called for accelerated progress on the Global Action Plan on Child Wasting.
According to them, the UN Global Action Plan on Child Wasting is our joint effort to prevent, detect and treat wasting globally.
The UNHCR are working hard to improve analysis and targeting to ensure that they reach children who are most at risk, including internally-displaced and refugees populations.
Catherine Russell, Executive Director, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said that cascading crises are leaving millions of children wasted and have made it harder for them to access key services.
Russell says “casting is painful for the child, and in severe cases, can lead to death or permanent damage to children’s growth and development.”
She said that they can and must turn the nutrition crisis around through proven solutions to prevent, detect, and treat child wasting early.
The Executive Director of, the World Food Programme (WFP), David Beasley said that “more than 30 million children are acutely malnourished across the 15 worst-affected countries, so they must act now and must act together.”
Collaboration
Beasley said that they must collaborate to strengthen social safety nets and food assistance to ensure that Specialized Nutritious Foods are available to women and children who need them the most.
The Director-General of the World Health Organization, WHO, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus that “the global food crisis is also a health crisis, and a vicious cycle, malnutrition leads to disease, and disease leads to malnutrition,”
Dr Ghebreyesus said, indicating that urgent support is needed now in the hardest-hit countries to protect children’s lives and health, including ensuring critical access to healthy foods and nutrition services, especially for women and children.
NAN/ Mercy Chukwudiebere
