Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has expanded its emergency nutrition response programme to all 44 union councils of Tharparkar keeping in view the high rate of child deaths in the district.

The UNICEF has been closely working with the Sindh government to save the children of Tharparkar suffering from malnutrition. Reports said that more than 200 children died in Tharparkar in last three months.

In an interview to Daily Times, UNICEF Chief of Field Operations Rahama Rihood Mohammad said that Thar was one of the drought-affected districts of Sindh where high rate of malnutrition was prevalent.

“Extreme heat in the summer, food scarcity, unsafe drinking water and a lack of access to basic health facilities have an adverse effect on the life and well-being of the community,” he said.

The programme has so far screened 194,540 children (95,693 boys and 98,847 girls) for the assessment of acute malnutrition. A total of 14,503 children were found suffering from severe malnutrition and were admitted in the outpatient therapeutic programme. Similarly, 55,732 children were found suffering from moderate malnourishment and are being managed at supplementary feeding programme.

About 125,720 mothers and caretakers were reached for lifesaving nutrition messages. UNICEF does not have the statistics of child deaths due to malnutrition in Thar, but information can be sought from the government of Sindh. The UNICEF project will complete on March 31, 2016. Beyond that date, the government of Sindh has pledged to continue support for nutrition interventions from its own resources under the World Bank supported PC-1.

He said that poverty rates were high and a lack of rain affected agriculture and livestock, the main sources of livelihood. As a result, malnutrition was common among children and women. High rates of child mortality – largely due to acute malnutrition – posed a major challenge for local authorities, humanitarian organisations and civil society groups working in the area.

Responding to a question about UNICEF’s response to the problem of acute malnutrition, he said that for the last several years his organisation had been supporting the provincial government to counter acute malnutrition through the Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition programme in Tharparkar. These efforts were intensified in 2014 after a number of child deaths due to malnutrition were reported in Tharparkar. He said the UNICEF was helping through community-based measures, better access to services and raising awareness about proper nutrition. The UNICEF, in collaboration with the Nutrition Support Programme of the Department of Health of the government of Sindh and its partner organisations, was providing emergency nutrition response in all 44 union councils of the district, he said.