June 6, 2013
By Maureen Gallagher
Senior Nutrition Advisor
The influential new figures on maternal and child malnutrition reinforce how pervasive and destructive undernutrition remains
Today, the latest series on maternal and child malnutrition was published by the leading medical journal The Lancet, and its findings are revelatory. Global malnutrition now accounts for 45% all child deaths worldwide: a staggering 3.1 million young lives are lost each year—a half million from wasting, or severe acute malnutrition—making undernutrition the single greatest threat to child survival.
Five years after this groundbreaking series launched in 2008, The Lancet’s leading nutrition experts once again confirm that acute malnutrition remains a critical global health crisis. The publication goes beyond diagnosis by emphasizing the need for immediate action, with a special emphasis on lifesaving treatment for severe malnutrition as one of the most cost-effective of the nine nutrition interventions outlined in the report.
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