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Lack of funds threatens children's health programme - UNICEF

[Ethiopia] Ethiopian children. UN
Up to 20,000 children, some 10 years old, are trafficked by unscrupulous brokers each year to work in cities..
    ADDIS ABABA
    A crucial health outreach programme for vulnerable Ethiopian children could collapse unless the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which manages the project, receives funding quickly for the second phase this year, the agency said. An estimated US $7.7 million was urgently needed to provide Vitamin A supplementation, measles vaccination, bed nets, deworming drugs, nutritional screening and supplementary feeding for seven million children, according to UNICEF. Under the Enhanced Outreach Strategy programme a total of 1.6 million pregnant and lactating women are also screened for malnutrition and, where appropriate, referred to therapeutic feeding programmes. "It is crucial that we get this funding, and quickly," said Bjorn Ljungqvist, UNICEF's country director for Ethiopia said on Saturday. "The Enhanced Outreach Strategy has already saved tens of thousands of young lives in Ethiopia. It is one of the real success stories of health sector development in Ethiopia. We need to make sure that this success story keeps going," he added. dt/mw/eo

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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