The cost for providing treatment that can save the lives of the most malnourished children is expected to increase by 16% due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the problems caused by the pandemic, the UNICEF.
The cost of materials for the preparation of ready-to-eat therapeutic food has increased sharply due to the global food crisis caused by the war and the pandemic, the UN agency for children pointed out.
If funding is not increased in the next six months, an additional 600,000 children may not receive this critical treatmenta paste of high caloric value which contains oil, sugar, nuts and other nutrients.
UNICEF did not specify how much extra money is needed to continue this program. He explained, however, that a box containing 150 packets of this food – enough to feed a child for six to eight weeks until he regains his health – costs an average of $ 41.
The increase in the cost of preparing this food will lead to “catastrophic” levels of acute malnutritionwarned UNICEF in its announcement.
«The world is rapidly turning into a powder keg of child deaths that could have been avoided and miserable children suffering from malnutrition“, Complained the executive director of the service Kathryn Russell.
Malnutrition, when children are very thin for their height, affects 13.6 million children under 5 worldwide and is responsible for one in five deaths in this age group.
Even before the war and the pandemic, two out of three children did not have access to the healing food needed to save their lives, UNICEF said.
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