UN warns of catastrophic child malnutrition due to war

The cost of life-saving treatment for the most severely malnourished children is set to jump by up to 16% due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and pandemic disruptions, according to the UN children’s agency.

The raw ingredients of the ready-to-use therapeutic food have leapt in price amid the global food crisis sparked by the war and pandemic, Unicef said.

Without further funding in the next six months, 600,000 more children may miss out on the essential treatment, which is a high-energy paste made of ingredients including peanuts, oil, sugar and added nutrients.

Unicef said a carton of the specialised nutrition containing 150 packets — enough for six to eight weeks to bring a severely malnourished child back to health — cost about $41 (R659) on average before the up to 16% price rise.

It would need about $25m (R401.7m) to cover the added cost, the agency said.

Alongside the wider pressure on food security, including climate change, the price rise could lead to “catastrophic” levels of severe malnutrition, the children’s agency warned.

“The world is rapidly becoming a virtual tinderbox of preventable child deaths and child suffering from wasting,” Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said.

Severe wasting, when children are too thin for their height, affects 13.6-million children under five years old, and results in one in five deaths among this age group.

Even before the war and pandemic, two in three did not have access to the therapeutic food needed to save their lives, Unicef said.