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Globally, malnutrition contributes to between one third and one half of all child deaths before the age of five. Persistent high rates of child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia will not be reduced if malnutrition is not addressed more aggressively. This is a medical emergency.
MSF teams see the devastating impact of childhood malnutrition every day, having treated more than 150,000 children per year in 2006 and 2007. Malnutrition weakens resistance and increases the risk of dying from pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, measles or AIDS, five diseases that are responsible for half of the 9.8 million deaths in children under five every year.
Despite its overwhelming contribution to child mortality and its impact on long-term health, treatment of malnutrition has not been a high enough priority in international and national public health planning and programming.
Current policies to address malnutrition have serious flaws. Many programmes designed to reduce mortality of young children from malnutrition focus on changing mothers' breastfeeding and handwashing practices, as well as improving education about proper food choices for their young children.
Such strategies are insufficient because mothers in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa or Asia don't just need advice about how to feed their children. They need access to energy dense, animal source foods that contain the 40 essential nutrients a young child needs to grow and be healthy.
Exclusive breastfeeding, is only enough to meet the nutritional needs until six months of age.
Addressing the long-term challenges of poverty and food security is important - but addressing the needs of malnourished children today requires specific and targeted strategies to ensure children under two have access to the minimum nutrition they require. Existing interventions that fail to ensure the nutritional needs of children under two are met must be overhauled and new
strategies that target these children need to be devised. Read more about the global burden of malnutrition
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