Accelerating the reduction of maternal and child undernutrition
The current issue of the SCN NEWS focuses on Accelerating the reduction of maternal and child Undernutrition, which was the theme of the Symposium on 3 March 2008 at the 35th SCN Session, held 2-7 March 2008 in Hanoi, hosted by the Vietnamese Government. This 36th edition of SCN News features papers from the speeches and presentation at the SCN Session Symposium.
In one of the symposium papers entitled "Child undernutrition based on the new WHO growth standards and rates of reduction to 2015", Mercedes de Onis expressed that although fewer children are severely wasted worldwide compared to those affected by stunting, these children are at a very high risk of death and their treatment should be taken as a priority.
There is the need to scale up and improve hospital based case management to prevent death of severely wasted children. Since hospital based care reaches smaller proportion of the severely undernourished, promotion of the community-based approach currently recommended by UN agencies as an integral part of the management of severely wasted children is critical in order to reach the majority of children with severe wasting at the large-scale required to significantly impact this important cause of death.
View the full report here.