Starving Children In Africa Are Not Getting Enough Nutritious Food From World Aid
Filed under: News | By: JP
Posted on: October 11, 2007 | 1 Comment
A shocking discovery has found that five million children die from malnutrition around the world every year with doctors saying they struggle to cope with starvation in Africa with food aid doing very little to meet the needs of those most at risk.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the international aid organisation, has criticised the nutritional value of food given by the World Food Programme and UNICEF. Dr Cristophe Fournier, the MSF food official has said,
“It’s not enough just to give food. It’s what’s in the food that counts. Without the right amounts of vitamins and essential nutrients in their diet, young kids become vulnerable to disease that they would normally be able to fight off easily.”
You maybe be shocked to know that the food given to African families is usually a blend of corn and soy or millet porridge. That’s the nutritional equivalent of having bread and water.
A product mixing milk powder, peanuts, oil and sugar called Ready To Use Food (RUF), has been developed by nutritionists and has been found to help children recover quickly from malnourishment, strengthen the immune system and prevent stunted growth.
It is estimated that 20 million young children are suffering from severe malnutrition according to the World Health Organisation. Only 3% of those are given RUF.
Dr Susan Sheperd, MSF medical co-ordinator, has said,
“Instead of waiting for kids to get gravely ill we decided to act earlier.
“We are piloting a programme that gives RUF to all children under three in at-risk communities so that they get the nutrients that are missing in their normal diet.”
MSF is pleading with aid agencies to expand the use of RUF, but the World Food Programme says the product is too expensive and needs more research.
A spokesman for the WFP has said,
“We want the most economical response to malnutrition to reach the greatest number of people, but also the most effective response may well not be the cheapest. So it is a balance, it’s a trade-off, but everyone is looking at how to make that trade-off and where it’s possible.”
What do you make of this? Do you think that more can be done to help the situation in Africa?
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i live in canada. we have many taxes here. my parents are always complianing about the money the government takes from them. if all countries could dedicate even a fraction of the taxes then it could make a dramatic change in the world. i also beleive that if someone makes alot of money then they should be forced to donate a certain amount t charity