World Is Crying Out For Malnutrition Aid Up To 7 Million Children Dying Each Year, Says Unicef Report

Rich nations must spend more to help end the malnutrition afflicting millions of children in poorer countries, the leader of UNICEF said Tuesday.

The organization’s annual “State of the World’s Children” report found that malnutrition kills 6 million to 7 million children every year and leaves others intellectually impaired and more susceptible to disease.

Malnutrition has “a fatality rate greater than any infectious disease since the Black Death, which swept through 14th-century Europe and Asia,” Carol Bellamy, executive director of the United Nations Children’s fund, said at a news conference in Paris.

Half the children in southern Asia suffer from malnutrition as well as a third of the children in sub-Saharan Africa, the report said.

Malnutrition “not only kills, it maims,” Bellamy said.

“Children who survive the early consequences of nutritional deficiencies are often left crippled, chronically vulnerable to disease and intellectually impaired, unable to concentrate and learn,” she said. “And these are not problems children grow out of, they are permanent.”

Bellamy called on richer countries to increase funding for programs that provide supplements of vitamin A, iron and iodide to children in poorer countries.

Holding up a small iron-folate capsule, she said small amounts of these nutrients can make the difference in a child’s development.

She also noted that malnutrition is not confined to the developing world.

UNICEF estimates more than 13 million children in the U.S. - or one in four children under 12 - cannot get enough to eat. Bellamy said one-sixth of U.S. children are born into poverty- a higher proportion than in any other industrialized nation.

In many developing regions, gender bias often leaves young girls more susceptible to malnutrition since boys often are fed first.

“Discrimination and violence against women is a major cause of malnutrition,” Bellamy said. “When women suffer, the nutritional well-being of their children suffers, too.”