UN: Malnutrition Threat to Afghan Children Growing

Fri Feb 1, 5:28 PM ET

By Robert James Parsons

GENEVA (Reuters Health) - As the international community shifts its focus in Afghanistan toward reconstruction, United Nations aid agencies sounded the alarm on Friday about the worsening health situation for children in parts of the country.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) cautioned that, despite heavy rain and snow in some regions, it is too early to conclude that the drought that has ravaged the country has ended. According to FAO figures, some 85% of the population is directly dependent on agriculture, and after 3 years of drought the number of people becoming destitute is growing. The resulting malnutrition and related diseases are thus still a major problem, UN aid workers warn.

The breakdown in public health services, aggravated by the damage and migrations triggered by war, is taking a particularly heavy toll on children. "This is a grim reminder of the legacy of years of neglect," UNICEF's Wivina Belmonte told Reuters Health on Friday. "UNICEF is seriously concerned about indications from the western region of Afghanistan that the nutritional status of children is worsening--especially in the more remote areas of Ghor and Badghis Provinces."

The drought and now a harsh winter mean that thousands of Afghans are threatened by starvation and exposure to the cold. As always, children are among the most vulnerable. According to Belmonte, a recent joint UNICEF/NGO assessment in Badghis Province concluded that as many as one in eight children under the age of 5 is suffering from severe malnutrition.

"In any given year in the past decade," continued Belmonte, "some 250,000 children under 5 have died. The current rate of severe malnutrition is now six times higher than then."

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, however, announced to the press on Friday that the number of spontaneously returning refugees is rising, in spite of the weather and internal conditions. The agency, said its spokesman Ron Redmond, was doing its utmost to help these people.

UNICEF's Belmonte echoed this, adding that helping those already there in dire circumstances nonetheless had priority. Citing the magnitude and the urgency of the disaster, she told Reuters Health, "There is a daily fight for survival that we still haven't won."

All the same, the UN-sponsored vaccination programme, suspended when the bombing began, has taken off again. Working together, UNICEF, the World Health Organisation and the Afghan Ministry of Public Health have managed to vaccinate almost 800,000 children since the beginning of the year, two thirds of whom were in Kabul, the others in the eastern and northeastern regions.

According to UNICEF, there remain very serious problems arising from the extremely tense political situation and sporadic violence in pockets around the country. The result has been continuing displacement, lack of humanitarian access and lack of security for both civilians and humanitarian aid workers. The overall picture, said the agency, is complicated by the presence of mines and unexploded ordnance, which limit the capacity for agricultural recovery and infrastructure repair.