(UN News)* — Severe malnutrition, also known as severe wasting, is one of the top threats to child survival, yet perhaps one of the least known or understood, according to a report issued on Tuesday [17 May 2022] by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

© UNICEF/Bullen Chol \ A 6-month-old, malnourished boy in South Sudan receives milk through a feeding tube.

Severe Wasting: An overlooked child survival emergency, details that around one in five deaths among children under age five, can be attributed to severe wasting.

Triggered by a lack of nutritious food and repeated bouts of disease – such as diarrhoea, measles and malaria – it compromises a child’s immunity.

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