Zubair Qureshi Islamabad
Global food prices are soaring and children in Pakistan are suffering from increasingly severe forms of malnutrition as USD $5.5 million UN Humanitarian fund has been allocated to support lifesaving nutrition interventions in Pakistan.
A UN Pakistan report issued Monday has warned that the number of children suffering from wasting in Pakistan’s flood-affected areas had greatly increased compared to the pre-flood situation, which was already reaching emergency levels.
A rapid survey conducted in 15 flood-affected districts suggests that nearly one-third of children aged 6-23 months suffer from moderate acute malnutrition and 14 per cent from severe acute malnutrition — a life-threatening form of malnutrition — with girls being more affected than boys*. The number of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition with medical complications who are admitted for hospital treatment has also gradually increased since the floods, as global food prices soar.
“Even before the floods, child wasting was already reaching emergency levels, but what I am seeing now in villages is very worrying,” said Julien Harneis, the UN Resident Coordinator in Pakistan. “We are grateful for the global community’s support so far, but much more is needed to help the Government provide the increasing numbers of children who are at risk of death with immediate therapeutic food and care. We must help the Government avert a nutrition crisis which would have dangerous and irreversible consequences for millions of children, and for the future of Pakistan.”
The Resident Coordinator announced that he would dedicate USD $5.5 million out of the USD $6.5 million allocation received from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) — four-fifths of the grant — towards emergency nutrition and food security interventions.
