Malnutrition rising as food shortages bite

Preliminary results of a recent nutrition survey in Malawi have revealed alarming increases in malnutrition levels, with the central and southern regions hit hardest. According to the study, conducted by the Ministry of Health with support from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the National Statistical Office and a number of local NGOs, there is a "serious nutrition situation", with global acute malnutrition (GAM) at 13 percent in some districts. "Admissions to Nutritional Rehabilitation Units (NRU) increased by 63 percent from November to December, and we are still approaching the peak of the hunger season," UNICEF's Nutrition Officer, Roger Mathisen, told IRIN. Children under five years and pregnant or lactating women with moderate to severe acute malnutrition were being treated at the NRUs and provided with supplementary food rations after they were discharged, Mathisen explained. The survey results, now available for 23 of the 26 districts, showed GAM rates at above 10 percent in five districts, indicating a "severe nutrition situation", and GAM rates of between five and nine percent in eight districts, which signalled a "malnutrition warning alert". Comparing the new 2005/06 figures to previous hunger seasons, Mathisen said "the rates are much higher than for 2004/05 and are reaching levels seen during the crisis in 2003/04." The three most affected districts have severe acute malnutrition (SAM) levels of between five and seven percent. "SAM is a serious medical condition associated with high mortality, but once a child has developed SAM we manage to save 85 percent of the children admitted to the NRUs," Mathisen said. With an estimated 4.9 million people in dire need of humanitarian assistance, Malawi is going through a grinding food crisis after the worst harvest in a decade. But a lack of food is only one of the underlying factors leading to acute malnutrition. "This certainly aggravates the situation, but malnutrition is the outcome of not only food shortage, but also of inadequate quality and access to health services, and water and sanitation," Mathisen explained, "and the increasing incidence of diseases such as cholera, malaria and diarrhoea, brought on by the rainy season, is currently making matters worse."