06 Dec Malnutrition and Child Pneumonia Scorecard
Reducing malnutrition will deliver many benefits to child health including significant declines in deaths from pneumonia – the leading infectious killer of children under five. Malnutrition is the leading risk factor for child pneumonia death, contributing to 418,600 (83%) deaths in 2021. No other risk factor contributes to this many child pneumonia deaths, according to the Global Burden of Disease (GBD).
A child is malnourished when they are underweight (low weight-for-age), stunted (low height-for-age), wasted (low weight-for-height), and/or born with low birth weight (<2500 grams/5.5 pounds). Wasting is a particularly high risk for child death. It often indicates recent and severe weight loss, although it can also persist for a long time. It usually occurs when a child has not had food of adequate quality and quantity and/or they have had frequent or prolonged illnesses. There are an estimated 45 million wasted children in the world.
Malnutrition-related child pneumonia deaths are concentrated among very young children. Seventy percent (293,000) are among children aged under one year and 40% of those in the first month of life. Evidence suggests wasting often begins much earlier in the womb and that children who are born with low birth weight are more likely to become malnourished.
Some populations of children are extremely vulnerable to malnutrition-related pneumonia deaths. Eighty percent of these deaths are in 20 countries – 12 in Africa and eight in Asia – including India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Chad, Niger, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Somalia, Indonesia, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Cameroon, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Egypt, and the Philippines.
The Every Breath Counts Malnutrition and Child Pneumonia Scorecard ranks these 20 countries and calls on their governments to introduce policies and programs to reduce the numbers of malnourished children and related deaths by integrating malnutrition prevention, diagnosis and treatment with broader child health services, especially vaccination.
These governments should prioritize the national nutrition targets that are most critical for child survival, publish regular progress to the targets, and introduce new measures to achieve them including by:
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- Assessing all pregnant women at risk of low birth weight (LBW) and supplementing pregnancy diets and diets of low birth weight babies in the first months of life
- Integrating the provision of malnutrition prevention, diagnosis, treatment and referral (if necessary) at the point of vaccination, including by weighing and testing all children with the mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) and by offering breastfeeding support to women at the point of vaccination
- Increasing local manufacturing and availability of quality and affordable therapeutic foods and supplementsto treat child malnutrition
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Investments to reduce malnutrition and the risk of pneumonia death will help countries accelerate progress to several of the Sustainable Development Goals for health, including:
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- 2.2 End all forms of malnutrition, including by achieving the internationally agreed target on wasting in children (0-4 years)
- 3.2.1 Reduce neonatal (0-28 days) deaths to at least 12 per 1,000 births and child (0-4 years) deaths to at least 25 per 1,000 births
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Released for the United Nations General Assembly 2024
Read the Malnutrition and Child Pneumonia Scorecard
September 2024