Sindh faces Chad-like hunger, says Unicef

Source: Dawn

Date: January 27, 2011

ISLAMABAD, Jan 26: The Sindh province, hit hard by last year`s floods, is suffering levels of malnutrition almost as critical as Chad and Niger, with hundreds of thousands of children at risk, Unicef said on Wednesday.

A survey conducted by the provincial government and the UN Children`s Fund revealed malnutrition rates of 23.1 per cent in northern Sindh and 21.2 per cent in the south.

Those rates are above the 15 per cent emergency threshold set by the World Health Organization and are on a par with some of the poorest parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Northern Sindh also had a 6.1 per cent `severe acute` malnutrition rate and southern Sindh had 2.9 per cent, both far above the WHO thresholds. “We are looking at hundreds of thousands of children at risk,” Unicef chief of communication Kristen Elsby said.

A full report would be released on Friday by the Sindh government, she said, along with the province`s response plan.

Ms Elsby said it was unclear if the floods had caused a spike in malnutrition, but that it had revealed the extent of the problem because babies and mothers were being screened for the first time.

In Sindh and Balochistan, some 600,000 people are still living in camps, according to the World Food Programme.—Reuters

Link: http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/27/sindh-faces-chad-like-hunger-says-unicef.html