UNB, Dhaka :
Admissions for treating severely wasted children with medical complications in Bangladesh were down to 10 percent in April 2020 compared to pre-pandemic levels, said Unicef on Tuesday.
While essential nutrition services have now started resuming, they have not returned to prior capacity.
In June 2020, admissions were at 56 percent compared to what they were before the start of the pandemic.
“Malnutrition could exacerbate the effects of Covid-19 in mothers and children and make the current crisis an inter-generational one. Greater efforts are needed to make sure essential nutrition services are operating at full capacity, and that parents feel safe to bring their children to health facilities for screening and treatment,” said Tomoo Hozumi, Unicef Representative in Bangladesh.
To improve the continuity of essential nutrition services in Bangladesh, Unicef supports the government and other stakeholders to increase vitamin A supplementation, treat children with severe wasting, promote improved young child feeding, and provide micronutrient supplements to pregnant women.
An additional 3.9 million children in South Asia under the age of five could suffer from wasting – and therefore become dangerously undernourished – in 2020 as a result of the socio-economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Unicef warned.
According to an analysis published in The Lancet, 6.7 million children globally could suffer from wasting and over half (58 percent or 3.9 million) would be from South Asia alone.
Wasting, which makes children too thin and weak, is a life-threatening form of malnutrition.
It puts them at the greater risk of dying, poor growth, development and learning. According to Unicef, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, 47 million children were already wasted in 2019.
Without urgent action, the global number of children suffering from wasting could reach almost 54 million over the course of the year.
This would bring global wasting to levels not seen this millennium.
The Lancet analysis finds that the prevalence of wasting among children under the age of five could increase by 14.3 percent in low- and middle-income countries this year due to the socio-economic impacts of Covid-19.
Such an increase in child malnutrition could translate into an increase from 1.7 million children wasted in 2019 in Bangladesh to 1.9 million in 2020.
“It’s been seven months since the first Covid-19 cases were reported and it’s increasingly clear that the repercussions of the pandemic are causing more harm to children than the disease itself,” said Unicef Executive Director Henrietta Fore.
“Household poverty and food insecurity rates have increased. Essential nutrition services and supply chains have been disrupted. Food prices have soared. As a result, the quality of children’s diets has gone down and malnutrition rates will go up.”
Admissions for treating severely wasted children with medical complications in Bangladesh were down to 10 percent in April 2020 compared to pre-pandemic levels, said Unicef on Tuesday.
While essential nutrition services have now started resuming, they have not returned to prior capacity.
In June 2020, admissions were at 56 percent compared to what they were before the start of the pandemic.
“Malnutrition could exacerbate the effects of Covid-19 in mothers and children and make the current crisis an inter-generational one. Greater efforts are needed to make sure essential nutrition services are operating at full capacity, and that parents feel safe to bring their children to health facilities for screening and treatment,” said Tomoo Hozumi, Unicef Representative in Bangladesh.
To improve the continuity of essential nutrition services in Bangladesh, Unicef supports the government and other stakeholders to increase vitamin A supplementation, treat children with severe wasting, promote improved young child feeding, and provide micronutrient supplements to pregnant women.
An additional 3.9 million children in South Asia under the age of five could suffer from wasting – and therefore become dangerously undernourished – in 2020 as a result of the socio-economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Unicef warned.
According to an analysis published in The Lancet, 6.7 million children globally could suffer from wasting and over half (58 percent or 3.9 million) would be from South Asia alone.
Wasting, which makes children too thin and weak, is a life-threatening form of malnutrition.
It puts them at the greater risk of dying, poor growth, development and learning. According to Unicef, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, 47 million children were already wasted in 2019.
Without urgent action, the global number of children suffering from wasting could reach almost 54 million over the course of the year.
This would bring global wasting to levels not seen this millennium.
The Lancet analysis finds that the prevalence of wasting among children under the age of five could increase by 14.3 percent in low- and middle-income countries this year due to the socio-economic impacts of Covid-19.
Such an increase in child malnutrition could translate into an increase from 1.7 million children wasted in 2019 in Bangladesh to 1.9 million in 2020.
“It’s been seven months since the first Covid-19 cases were reported and it’s increasingly clear that the repercussions of the pandemic are causing more harm to children than the disease itself,” said Unicef Executive Director Henrietta Fore.
“Household poverty and food insecurity rates have increased. Essential nutrition services and supply chains have been disrupted. Food prices have soared. As a result, the quality of children’s diets has gone down and malnutrition rates will go up.”
