UNICEF survey finds nutrition and health falling among Iraqi children

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today called for urgent action to halt the plummeting nutrition and health status of Iraqi children.

The call comes after a UNICEF assessment of nutrition rates in Baghdad showed that 7.7 per cent of children under five are suffering from acute malnutrition, compared with last year’s figure of 4 per cent. More than 1 in 10 children were in need of treatment for dehydration and nearly three quarters had at least one bout of diarrhoea over the previous month, the survey also reveals.

“We knew going into the war that Iraqi children were poorly nourished. These findings make clear that not enough is being done to turn the situation around. Instead it has gotten worse,” UNICEF Representative in Iraq Carel De Rooy said. “We can assume that the situation is as bad if not much worse in other urban centres throughout Iraq.”

The agency said it confined the study to Baghdad because of general insecurity throughout the country. Although the samples are limited, they are considered sufficiently reliable to guide an initial aid response.

Unsafe water from disrupted water services might be playing a significant role in the deteriorating health and nutritional status of the children, the agency said.

“If we compare these results with earlier findings, we note that children who have generally grown over the past few years because of improved nutrition have suddenly and dramatically wasted,” UNICEF Health and Nutrition Officer Wisam Al-Timini said. “This coincides with war and the breakdown of social services. It’s not conclusive, but it suggests that the shift of children into the acutely malnourished category is recent.”

UNICEF said it is trucking more than 2 million litres of clean water into Iraq each day, and importing supplies of chlorine gas and tablets. It has also set up community water stations at hospitals and health stations across the country and teams made emergency repairs to pumping stations. But UNICEF stresses there is a limit to what can be done as looting continues on a daily basis.