Ethiopia children at risk of malnutrition

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Up to 170,000 children in Ethiopia could die from severe Malnutrition this year if donor countries fail to provide sufficient funding for food, water and sanitation, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

“Severe acute Malnutrition among Ethiopia’s children has reached alarming levels across the country,” said Bjorn Ljungqvist, Ethiopia representative of the U.N. Children’s Fund.

He said UNICEF urgently needed $42 million to quadruple the number of feeding centres it runs in Ethiopia, provide more Vitamin A, de-worming and anti-measles care and food for 6.8 million children and extend emergency water and sanitation to 1.2 million people.

“Emergency health and nutrition programmes have only 25 percent of their funding. Without treatment up to 170,000 children could die this year from severe acute Malnutrition,” he said in a statement.

Poor rains and the continuing impact of a drought in 2002-2003 have worsened the scarcity of food. A drought-induced famine killed nearly one million people in Ethiopia in 1984.

Drought currently threatens 150 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, a figure that is likely to more than double by 2030 with the effects of population growth and climate change, U.N. experts say. 

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