Unicef warns of the exposure of newborns to risks in relation to maternal malnutrition. According to Unicef, the 25% increase in the rate of malnutrition among mothers is worrying. “According to a new UNICEF report released today, the number of pregnant and lactating adolescent girls and women suffering from acute malnutrition has increased significantly since 2020 in 12 countries severely affected by the global food and nutrition crisis, from from 5.5 to 6.9 million – an increase of 25%,” UNICEF said in the statement.
Twelve countries are the most affected. According to the report, which provides a comprehensive and unique review of the nutritional status of adolescent girls and women around the world, more than one billion of them are undernourished (including underweight and small height), deficiencies in essential micronutrients and anemia, a situation that has devastating effects on their lives and
welfare.
The reasons are many. The global crisis has not spared women and adolescent girls. Nutrition crisis “Due to the global food crisis, millions of mothers and children are facing severe hunger and malnutrition,” says Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF. “If the international community does not act urgently, this
crisis might have lasting consequences for future generations. »
In the country, a report by Unicef in Madagascar published in 2022 highlighted many factors that have the greatest impact on health and nutrition in the country: poverty; excessive use of traditional medicine and low level of education; and distance from health centres. Added to this are climatic phenomena. The twelve countries (Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Chad and Yemen) constitute the epicenter of this nutritional crisis, which is aggravated by the war in Ukraine and by the current drought, conflict and instability in some countries; the nutritional crisis affecting adolescent girls and women, which had already shown little improvement over the past twenty years.
