Virus-linked hunger is leading to the deaths of 10,000 more children a month over the first year of the pandemic, according to an urgent call to action from the United Nations.
In this Aug. 26, 2019 photo, mothers hold their babies suffering from malnutrition as they wait at a UNICEF clinic in Jabal Saraj, north of Kabul, Afghanistan. HOUNDE, BURKINA FASO -- The lean season is coming for Burkina Faso's children. And this time, the long wait for the harvest is bringing a hunger more ferocious than most have ever known.
"The food security effects of the COVID crisis are going to reflect many years from now," said Dr. Francesco Branca, the World Health Organization head of nutrition. "There is going to be a societal effect."------------ In April, World Food Program head David Beasley warned that the coronavirus economy would cause global famines "of biblical proportions" this year. There are different stages of what is known as food insecurity; famine is officially declared when, along with other measures, 30% of the population suffers from wasting.
"Every day we receive a malnourished child," said Dr. Francisco Nieto, who works in a hospital in the border state of Tachira. He added that they look "like children we haven't seen in a long time in Venezuela," alluding to those in famines in parts of Africa. "By having schools closed, by having primary health care services disrupted, by having nutritional programs dysfunctional, we are also creating harm," Aguayo said. He cited as an example the near-global suspension of Vitamin A supplements, which are a crucial way to bolster developing immune systems.
Four in 10 Afghan children are already stunted. Stunting happens when families live on a cheap diet of grains or potatoes, with supply chains in disarray and money scarce. Most stunted children never catch up, dampening the productivity of poor countries, according to a report released this month by the Chatham House think-tank .
Fatma Nasser, a 34-year-old mother of seven, is among three million displaced people in Yemen who don't have enough money to feed themselves or their children. She lives on one meal a day. Ibrahim Nasser, the father, lost his only source of income, fishing, after roads to the sea were closed because of the coronavirus.
Long before the pandemic hit, Sudan's economy had plummeted, especially after the oil-rich south seceded in 2011. Decades of economic mismanagement under Omar al-Bashir led to a surge in food prices, and the transitional government now in power has struggled to stop the tailspin. Before the pandemic and lockdown, his family ate three meals a day, sometimes with bread, or they'd add butter to porridge. Now they are down to just one meal, in the morning, of "millet porridge" -- water mixed with grain. He said the hunger is showing "in my children's faces."
Back in Burkina Faso, COVID-19 restrictions are also hitting hard, keeping families like that of 14-year-old Nafissetou Niampa from the market. Niampa lay face down on a bed at the Yalgado Ouedraogo University Hospital in the capital, Ouagadougou, fanned by her mother. The teenager has a heart condition that affects her breathing and now is shedding weight as well.
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