The adverse socio-economic impacts of Covid-19 could leave 1.9 million children in Bangladesh—under the age of five— suffer froming wasting in 2020, and therefore become dangerously undernourished, according to The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef)
According to an analytic report published in the Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal, 6.7 million children could suffer from wasting globally, and 3.9 million (over 58%) would be from South Asia alone, said Unicef.
Wasting, which makes children overly thin and weak, is a life-threatening form of malnutrition. It puts them at greater risk of dying, and poor growth, development and learning.
“The prevalence of wasting among children under the age of five could increase by 14.3% 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,” the Lancet report predicted.
In Bangladesh, admissions for treating severely wasted children with medical complications were down to 10% in April 2020 compared to pre-pandemic levels.
While essential nutrition services have now started to resume, they have not returned to prior capacity, the report said.
In June 2020, admissions were at 56% compared with what they were before the start of the pandemic, it added.
Malnutrition could worsen the effects of Covid-19 in mothers and children, and make the current crisis an inter-generational one, said Tomoo Hozumi, Unicef representative in Bangladesh.
“Greater effort is needed to make sure that essential nutrition services are operating at full capacity, and that parents feel safe to bring their children to health facilities for screening and treatment.
Unicef Executive Director Henrietta Fore said: “It’s been seven months since the first Covid-19 cases were reported, and it is increasingly clear that the repercussions of the pandemic are causing more harm to children than the disease itself.”
“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.”
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.
Humanitarian agencies globally need $2.4 billion immediately to protect maternal and child nutrition in the most vulnerable countries from now until the end of the year.
The heads of the four United Nations agencies appealed to governments, the public, donors, and the private sector to protect children’s right to nutrition.
Unicef’s recommendations to tackle the situation
The UN agency mentioned the following suggestions to deal with the situation:
- Safeguarding access to nutritious, safe, and affordable diets as a cornerstone of the response to Covid-19 by protecting food producers, processors and retailers, discouraging trade bans, and designating food markets as essential services.
- Investing decisively in support for maternal and child nutrition by protecting breastfeeding, preventing the inappropriate marketing of infant formula, and securing children and women’s access to nutritious and diverse foods.
- Re-activating and scaling up services for the early detection and treatment of child wasting while expanding other life-protecting nutrition services.
- Maintaining the provision of nutritious and safe school meals by reaching vulnerable children through home delivery, take-home rations, and cash or vouchers when schools are closed.
- Expanding social protection to safeguard access to nutritious diets and essential services among the poorest and most affected households, including access to fortified foods.
