The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund has said 1.3 million children (under the age of five) suffering from severe acute malnutrition can lose access to treatment, leaving them at heightened risk of death.

UNICEF’s Deputy Executive Director, Kitty Palais, stated this at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on Friday.

In recent years, international donors have reduced their contributions to UN agencies, including UNICEF.

The situation worsened when the United States, its largest donour, imposed a 90-day suspension on all foreign aid on the first day of President Donald Trump’s second term in office in January.

This decision, along with subsequent orders halting numerous programmes of the United States Agency for International Development worldwide, has put lifesaving food and medical aid at risk, disrupting global humanitarian relief efforts.

Heijden said in the last 25 years, there had been significant progress in tackling the global malnutrition crisis for children, adding that since the year 2000, the number of stunted children had decreased by 55 million, or one third.

“In 2024, UNICEF and our partners reached 441 million children under five with services to prevent all forms of malnutrition, while 9.3 million children received treatment for severe wasting and others forms of severe acute malnutrition. This progress was made possible through the efforts of governments and the generosity of donors – including those in government, the private sector and philanthropic organizations – whose unwavering support was critical to the prevetntion and treatment of child malnutrition at a global scale.

“Today, those hard-earned gains are being rolled back because humanitarian and nutrition partners face a different, deepening crisis – namely the sharp decline in funding support for our lifesaving work. But it is more than the quantity of the reductions … the problem is also how they have been made – in some cases, suddenly and without warning, leaving us with no time to mitigate their impact on our programmes for children.

“Earlier this week, I saw the consequences of the funding crisis firsthand when I visited the Afar region in the north of Ethiopia and Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria. Due to funding gaps in both countries, nearly 1.3 million children under five suffering from severe acute malnutrition could lose access to treatment over the course of the year – leaving them at heightened risk of death.




https://punchng.com/1-3-million-nigerian-ethiopian-children-risk-death-from-malnutrition-unicef/