Malnutrition claims 6mn children annually!

Washington: Malnutrition kills nearly 6 million children a year, mainly in developing countries like

India, despite the availability of relatively cheap solutions that could improve global nutrition, a report has said. While low and middle-income countries bear the brunt of the problem, malnutrition affects some rich countries as well, said the report by the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington Policy Research Group. The bureau`s "2007 World Population Datasheet" and two companion reports provide up-to-date demographic, health and environmental data for all the countries and the major regions of the world. The report said poor nutrition during mother`s pregnancy and the baby`s early years causes severe and irreversible mental and physical damage. Bill Butz, the president of the Population Reference Bureau, said the public often does not consider the deadly toll of malnutrition among children "because it does not kill young children directly, as does pneumonia or diarrhea." "Many of these deaths could be averted through nutrition measures that are known to be effective, often at low cost," Butz said. "Malnutrition often increases susceptibility to disease, while ill health exacerbates poor nutrition," the report said. "For countries ravaged by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, malnutrition appears to increase vulnerability to infection and render retroviral treatments less effective." Despite some important progress, the report said, about 30 per cent of children in low- and middle-income countries are underweight. The largest problems are in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. For example, almost half the children are underweight in some Indian states. Bureau Report